PHP DIR or FILE symlinked

Question

Using __DIR__ and __FILE__ constants do not work in a symlinked situation. What is the workaround for this?

For example:

I have a file:

/home/me/modules/myfile.php

It is symlinked to:

/var/www/project/app/myfile.php

from in /home/me/modules/myfile.php i need to include a file that is located in /var/www/project

EDIT

To the suggestions of using realpath() - unfortunately this does not work.

var_dump(__DIR__);
var_dump(realpath(__DIR__));

both return exactly the same filepath

[`realpath()`](http://us3.php.net/manual/en/function.realpath.php) — Michael Berkowski, Dec 07 '12 at 21:12
odd, realpath() returns false and the file definately exists — Marty Wallace, Dec 07 '12 at 21:17
Excuse my last comment it was me being stupid. But, realpath does not actually use the symlinked directory. So it doesnt work unforunately — Marty Wallace, Dec 07 '12 at 21:25
The following discussion may help you resolve the problem: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3221771/how-do-you-get-php-symlinks-and-file-to-work-together-nicely — ank, Dec 07 '12 at 21:52
Just to make it clear: you need directory where symlink is located, not directory of actual file? — dev-null-dweller, Dec 07 '12 at 22:21

score 6 · Answer 1 · answered May 24 '13 at 22:19

6

Have you tried the following?

dirname($_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME'])

In your case this will return: /var/www/project/app

answered May 24 '13 at 22:19

Tim

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2

1

This should be the accepted answer – Mikael Lindqvist Jun 22 '15 at 20:09
1

This only works assuming PHP is running through a web server like Apache, not on the command line. – Greg Jun 09 '16 at 12:05
Not true. This works regardless of whether you're using a Web Server of Console. It's still going through a Server / SAPI -- in terms of a console, it will go through fpm-cgi rather than apache-cgi, for example. I have tested this and `$_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME']` definitely works. – emma.fn2 Sep 19 '16 at 22:21
@emma.fn2 $_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME'] returns file path passed as argument to php, not full path to file – ts. Nov 18 '16 at 17:14
3

This will fail to return the correct file path if you use this inside an included PHP file that is in a subfolder – Drakes Dec 21 '16 at 22:46
Using `SCRIPT_FILENAME` is mostly an equivalent to `realpath("./")` so is pretty much useless in a situation Drake describes. Example would be including a `config.php` from `test` directory. Where in the config you need to get scripts root. – Nux Jul 26 '19 at 16:16

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 07 '12 at 21:13

0

You can use the realpath() function to expand symbolic links. My recommendation, however, would be to not use symlinks like this. (Add /var/www/project/app, or an appropriate parent directory, to your PHP include path instead.)

answered Dec 07 '12 at 21:13

Im afraid realpath doesnt give me the symlinked location either – Marty Wallace Dec 07 '12 at 21:54
[`readlink()`](http://php.net/readlink) maybe? If not, I'm at a loss. – Dec 07 '12 at 22:42
1

@duskwuff see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/13771021/php-dir-or-file-symlinked#comment18933995_13771021 OP wants opposite effect to realpath and readlink – dev-null-dweller Dec 07 '12 at 23:07
In that case, that isn't possible. There isn't even a unique answer -- there may be any number of symbolic links which all point to the same file. – Dec 07 '12 at 23:14

PHP __DIR__ or __FILE__ symlinked

2 Answers2

PHP DIR or FILE symlinked