So, examining this directory structure
Assume that I am in /directory/main_file.php and I call include('../include_one.php');
inside of include_one.php, to include include_two.php. Do I need to call include('include_two.php);
or include('../include_two.php');
?
So my question is: When including a file, is the 'relative include path' shifted to the included file, or does it remain at the main including file?
I am aware that the best alternative would be to have a config.php which contains the root_path, however this is not possible at this stage.
directory structure
/include.php
/start/start.php
/folder1/includeone.php
/folder1/folder2/includetwo.php
and here is the contents of each file
start.php
<?php echo 'including ../include.php<br />'; include('../include.php'); ?>
include.php
<?php echo 'including folder1/includeone.php<br />'; include('folder1/includeone.php'); ?>
includeone.php
<?php echo 'including folder2/includetwo.php<br />'; include('folder2/includetwo.php'); ?>
includetwo.php
<?php echo 'done<br />'; ?>
and the output is
including ../include.php
including folder1/includeone.php
including folder2/includetwo.php
done
To call a function from another file in PHP, you need to import the file where the function is defined before calling it. You can import a PHP file by using the require statement.
The include (or require ) statement takes all the text/code/markup that exists in the specified file and copies it into the file that uses the include statement. Including files is very useful when you want to include the same PHP, HTML, or text on multiple pages of a website.
The __DIR__ can be used to obtain the current code working directory. It has been introduced in PHP beginning from version 5.3. It is similar to using dirname(__FILE__). Usually, it is used to include other files that is present in an included file.
INCLUDE includes a file of commands in a session. INCLUDE is especially useful for including a long series of data definition statements or transformations. Another use for INCLUDE is to set up a library of commonly used commands and include them in the command sequence as they are needed.
The "relative include path" is not shifted to the included file... Which means that using relative paths generally ends badly.
A better solution, that I use almost all the time, is to always work with absolute paths -- and you can mix relatives and absolute paths using __DIR__
, to get the directory that contains the file where this is written.
For example, in include_one.php
, you'd use :
require_once __DIR__ . '/include_two.php';
To include the include_two.php
file that's in the same directory as include_one.php
.
And, in main_file.php
, you'd use :
require_once __DIR__ . '/../include_one.php';
To include the include_one.php
file that's one directory up.
With that, your includes will work, no matter from which file they are called.
The include path is relative to the first file in the include chain.
A good way to ensure the correct include path is to always include from the document root.
This is done like this:
include $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . '/folder1/folder2/includetwo.php';
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