PHP: Can't access a definition from an included file?

Question

I have a file file_to_include.php that contains variable definitions,

define("NAME", "John Doe");

But when I try to include it in my other file, index.php, using

include_once 'file_to_include.php';

and then echo my definition in index.php with

echo NAME;

All I see on the page is NAME, not John Doe.

I think definitions are global, what am I doing wrong?

Try defining it as .. public const $NAME = "John Doe" and check if it works — Nevermore, Dec 24 '16 at 12:37
enable `display_errors`, and see if `include_once` throws a `warning`. — Federkun, Dec 24 '16 at 12:45
No need to use public const . `define()` should work. Something else is buggy. Hmm... — CodeGodie, Dec 24 '16 at 12:45
edit: Aha! PHP can't find my file. Let me do some more poking around... — , Dec 24 '16 at 13:14
include_once(): Failed opening '/constants/db_config.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/share/php') in /var/www/html/controller/db_connect.php on line 6 — , Dec 24 '16 at 13:15

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 24 '16 at 13:35

Maybe wrong path, look what the PHP's inlcude_path is look like. PHP's include and include_once will continue, even the requested file is found or not.

You should keep that in mind, that require and require_once will break the execution if the file is not found, in contrast to include and include_one will not.

The PHP documentation says:

require is identical to include except upon failure it will also produce a fatal E_COMPILE_ERROR level error. In other words, it will halt the script whereas include only emits a warning (E_WARNING) which allows the script to continue.

PHP: Can't access a definition from an included file?

1 Answers1