destination path for move_uploaded_file in php

Question

I need to know what to use for a destination path for PHP's move_uploaded_file function. (see http://php.net/manual/en/function.move-uploaded-file.php)

Right now, I have code that works fine. My domain's root directory contains the following items (among others):
uploads     <-this is a folder
add-photo-submit.php    <-this is a PHP file that uses move_uploaded_file

In add-photo-submit.php, I have the following line of code:

$target_path = "uploads/" . basename($_FILES['uploadedFile']['name']);

$target_path is used as the destination parameter for the function. This works just fine when I access the file through www.mydomain.com/add-photo-submit.php

However, I recently changed the .htaccess file to remove the .php and add a trailing slash. Now the PHP file is accessed at www.mydomain.com/add-photo-submit/ I think the PHP file is interpreting the target path as "www.mydomain.com/add-photo-submit/uploads/filename.jpg"

I tried using an absolute path, but it said I didn't have permission...

In the future I would like my root directory to be setup like this:
root
 -admin (folder)
    -add-photo-submit.php
 -uploads

What frame of reference does move_uploaded_file have?

Answer 1

PHP's local filename operations have no idea what mod_rewrite did to your urls, and deal only with actual raw file system paths. You could have mod_rewrite turn your nice simple example.com/index.php into a hideous example.com/a/b/c/d/e/f/g/h/i/j/k/l/m/n/o/p/q/r/s/t/u/v/w/x/yz and PHP would still be running in the same physical directory on the server.

If the PHP script lives at /home/sites/example.com/html/index.php, and you use uploads/example.jpg as your move path, then PHP will attempt to put that image into /home/sites/example.com/html/uploads/example.jpg, regardless of what the requested URL was.

Answer 2

You should use document_root to get absolute path like this:

$target_path = $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . "/uploads/" . basename($_FILES['uploadedFile']['name']);

Answer 3

We can use dirname(__FILE__) instead of server root declare below line in any of root file(index.php)

$_SESSION["uploads_base_url"]=dirname(__FILE__); 

and you can now use this in any files where upload is needed.

echo $uploads_base_url=$_SESSION["uploads_base_url"];

Answer 4

Or use

$target_path = "../uploads/" . basename($fileUpload['name']);