I've spent days researching the internet and I can't find the answer that I will understand and are able to implement.
I've got the website in which I want to use include_once
files and be able to view the website properly in both localhost and the actual server.
I've used $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']
before but it doesn't work on the localhost so it is hard for me to update and do the changes to the website.
What I want to do is to create some sort of config.php file in which I can tell it that the root folder is either called htdocs
or public_html
and to "start" looking for files from there.
Or is there any other way I can get include paths to work?
I've seen replies with e.g. dirname(__FILE__)
, __DIR__
, etc. but they never explained how it would work, where to write it in the code, etc. I'm a bit sick and tired of finding part of the answer and then running around in circles just try and "fill in" the gaps. I'm not a PHP expert, just trying to make my life a bit easier by using it.
dirname(__FILE__)
and __DIR__
both same and __DIR__
comes with PHP 5.3
These are used in order to indicate that the "path of the file where they called".
URL: http://localhost/test/a.php
DIR: --NIX
/var/www/test/a.php
--WIN
D:\lamp\www\test\a.php
// a.php's inside
<?php
echo __DIR__;
Gives you this on linux: /var/www/test
So, if you need a config parameter in all your project, just define it in your config.php and use it where you want both the file name that will be included.
./
config.php
index.php
header.php
footer.php
/lib
foo.php
/tmp
bar.php
./config.php
define('ROOT', __DIR__ .'/');
./index.php include_once(ROOT .'header.php'); ... include_once(ROOT .'footer.php');
i.e, using it in tmp dir
./tmp/bar.php include_once(ROOT .'lib/foo.php');
UPDATE
// config.php
<?php
define("ROOT", __DIR__ ."/");
So, we use this for index.php
to include banner.php
and banner.php
is waiting in ./banners/banner.php
;
// index.php and the very first line!
<?php
include_once("config.php");
?>
// some html stuff
// ...
<?php include_once(ROOT ."banners/banner.php"); ?>
// some more html stuff
// ...
So, you should include config.php first to where you need it.
I think, this is basic as far as needed...
UPDATE
So your problem is not PHP include
system, but question, anyway... :)
If your image path is changing (so not fixed), you can do like this;
// config.php
define("ROOT", __DIR__ ."/");
define("HTTP", ($_SERVER["SERVER_NAME"] == "localhost")
? "http://localhost/your_work_folder/"
: "http://your_site_name.com/"
);
// banner.php
<img src="<?php print HTTP; ?>images/banner.gif">
I normally set up what you mentioned, a config.php in an include directory, and have the following line in it: define('BASE_PATH', str_replace('/include', '', dirname(__FILE__)));
("/include should be whatever directory your config.php file is in, if you have it in the root directory, you can just use define('BASE_PATH', dirname(__FILE__));
). When I want to include any other file after that, I use include_once(BASE_PATH . '/directory/file.php');
.
note: this concept is not original to me by any means.
There is a function called getcwd()
which will return the current working folder. If you call this at the very beginning of your script, you can store this, usually into a constant with define()
.
define('PROJECT_ROOT', getcwd());
To get/display the current work directory, php have a builtin function for that
echo getcwd() . "\n";
This will display the current directory of your php file which is now being executed.
You can also change the include path, e.g.,
$dir = dirname(__FILE__);
set_include_path($dir . '/../library' . PATH_SEPARATOR . $dir . '/../engine' . PATH_SEPARATOR . get_include_path());