Why do my php includes return, "failed to open stream: No such file or directory in..."

Question

I'm using simple include files for common elements on a mostly static website. I do so like this

<?php include('/inc/header.php'); ?>

But this doesn't work unless i remove the leading slash, and then it only works on pages in the root directory. What am I doing wrong?

One often runs into this error, and to quickly troubleshoot it, follow these steps : http://stackoverflow.com/a/36577021/2873507 — Vic Seedoubleyew, Apr 12 '16 at 16:52
Possible duplicate of [Failed to open stream : No such file or directory](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/36577020/failed-to-open-stream-no-such-file-or-directory) — Vic Seedoubleyew, Sep 10 '16 at 09:25

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 29 '10 at 16:16

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/... is an absolute path on unix systems. To specify a relative path use ./.... That will be relative to the called file's directory.

answered Oct 29 '10 at 16:16

NikiC

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There is now a troubleshooting checklist for this frequent error here : stackoverflow.com/a/36577021/2873507 – Vic Seedoubleyew Apr 12 '16 at 16:53

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited Aug 04 '20 at 13:49

3

'/' means the real server root directory.

If you need web document root use :

 include("{$_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']}/inc/header.php");

edited Aug 04 '20 at 13:49

TECNO

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answered Oct 29 '10 at 16:16

mario

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I went a step further and did this: set_include_path("{$_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']}/inc"); so that I could call all the includes using just the file name like this: include('filename.php'); – Ben Oct 29 '10 at 16:30
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For portability sake, I wouldn't recommend using any of the `$_SERVER` paths... I recommend [`dirname(__FILE__);`](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2893088/best-method-for-creating-absolute-path-in-php-see-3-methods-listed-inside/2893104#2893104) since it will always work 100% of the time... – ircmaxell Oct 29 '10 at 16:31
There is now a troubleshooting checklist for this frequent error here : stackoverflow.com/a/36577021/2873507 – Vic Seedoubleyew Apr 12 '16 at 16:53
@VicSeedoubleyew Nice reference. Now if you want to make it a universal one, then mentioning common patterns like utilizing `DOCUMENT_ROOT` or a custom app root constant would make sense. – mario Apr 12 '16 at 23:29
@mario thanks for the suggestion. At which point in the answer do you suggest I add it ? – Vic Seedoubleyew Apr 13 '16 at 13:29

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 09 '13 at 08:08

Use this solution

I also facing same problem Warning: include(/test/assets/header.php) [function.include]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory

Warning: include() [function.include]: Failed opening '/test/assets/header.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/local/lib/php:/usr/local/php5/lib/pear')

But I solve them after searching it on google in 2 dyas.

Solution: you have to define your path then use include function as blow:

define (DOC_ROOT_PATH, $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].'/');

you can use any directory structure after that.

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 29 '10 at 16:16

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You have an absolute path - i.e. starts with /. So it is looking in your server root.

Without the slash it is a relative path and will look relative to the PHP file's path.

answered Oct 29 '10 at 16:16

Jason McCreary

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There is now a troubleshooting checklist for this frequent error here : stackoverflow.com/a/36577021/2873507 – Vic Seedoubleyew Apr 12 '16 at 16:53

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Aug 04 '20 at 10:58

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add "."before path like that :

<?php include('./inc/header.php'); ?>

The path meanings:

/ is the root of the current drive.
./ is the current directory (that what you want).
../ is the parent of the current directory.

answered Aug 04 '20 at 10:58

TECNO

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Why do my php includes return, "failed to open stream: No such file or directory in..."

5 Answers5