PHP - Relative paths "require"

Question

My directory structure looks like this:

blog -> admin -> index.php
blog.php
db.php
functions.php

I have been trying to include (require, really) blog.php in the admin/index.php, but facing lots of errors. I'm following a PHP course, and the instructor does the same thing successfully.

admin/index.php:

require "../blog.php";

which, in turn, requires two more files in its directory.

require "db.php";
require "functions.php";

I think you need to just step it out a level, ie. `../../blog.php` assuming that `blog.php` is not in the `blog` folder. — prodigitalson, Dec 16 '12 at 05:33
I don't think that would work. `blog.php` is in the `blog` directory. — Rafay, Dec 16 '12 at 05:35
Ahh your notation of directory structure was confusing to me :-) — prodigitalson, Dec 16 '12 at 21:47

score 43 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 16 '12 at 05:40

43

If you find that relative include paths aren't working as expected, a quick fix is to prepend __DIR__ to the front of the path you're trying to include.

require __DIR__ . "/../blog.php";

It's reasonably clean, and you don't need to modify the include path or working directory.

answered Dec 16 '12 at 05:40

Sam Dufel

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This worked. Thanks! Though I have no idea why do I have to do this. The instructor gets away with `require "../blog.php";` without any problem. Is it because of OS differences? He's on Mac, and I am on Windows. – Rafay Dec 16 '12 at 05:45
2

I'm actually not entirely sure - I believe it has to do with the current working directory not always matching the script's directory. – Sam Dufel Dec 16 '12 at 05:53
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@Rafay: its a bad practice anyway. You should always calculate the absolute path and then require/include. – prodigitalson Dec 16 '12 at 21:47

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 16 '12 at 05:34

3

You need to set the include_path in your php.ini.

If you want to set it at run-time, use set_include_path().

answered Dec 16 '12 at 05:34

Andy Lester

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score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 16 '12 at 05:31

If you are including this files db.php and functions.php in index.php then you have to write this code

require "../db.php";
require "../functions.php";

OR if you are including this files in blog.php then write this code

require "db.php";
require "functions.php";

score -3 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 16 '12 at 05:30

-3

I like to start my files with chdir($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']). This allows me to get a nice and logical base path for all my includes.

answered Dec 16 '12 at 05:30

Niet the Dark Absol

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That's why you have the include_path directive in the php.ini. – Andy Lester Dec 16 '12 at 05:35
`include_path` doesn't apply for things like `file_exists` though ;) – Niet the Dark Absol Dec 16 '12 at 05:53
and one file operation per php file with no real use. Consider using PSR-0 or using __DIR__. – Mario Mueller Dec 16 '12 at 07:58

PHP - Relative paths "require"

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