How to set the PHP include path via .htaccess?

Question

I want to set the PHP include path to another directory. I tried putting this in an .htaccess file, but that didn't work. The only thing I see is the include path's I set in httpd.conf, but not the one I tried to add.

<IfModule mod_php5.c>
php_value include_path ".:/var/www/mywebsite/"
</IfModule>

What am I doing wrong? I did a2enmod mod_php5, but it was already running, so I suppose PHP5 is already running as Apache module.

[EDIT] In my vhost config I have this:

<Directory ~ "^/var/www/.*">
        AllowOverride All
        Options FollowSymLinks -Indexes -MultiViews
        php_value include_path ".:./include:./.include/:/var/www/.include/:/var/www/"
</Directory>

More info (phpinfo()):

Loaded Modules  core mod_log_config mod_logio prefork http_core mod_so mod_alias mod_auth_basic mod_auth_mysql mod_authn_file mod_authz_default mod_authz_groupfile mod_authz_host mod_authz_user mod_autoindex mod_cgi mod_deflate mod_dir mod_env mod_mime mod_negotiation mod_php5 mod_reqtimeout mod_rewrite mod_setenvif mod_status

include_path    .:./include:./.include/:/var/www/.include/:/var/www/    .:/usr/share/php:/usr/share/pear

Regards, Kevin

Answer 1

Apache must be configured to allow settings to be overridden via .htaccess. Check your Apache config file (httpd.conf) for an override for your directory:

<Directory "/directory/containing/your/htaccess/file">
    AllowOverride All
</Directory>

Place this within the vhost definition for your site.

If this is a global change, you should change the include_path setting in your php.ini file instead of using .htaccess.

Both of these changes will require an Apache restart.

EDIT:

This is a quote from the Apache Core features page:

"Suppose that the filename being accessed is /home/abc/public_html/abc/index.html. The server considers each of /, /home, /home/abc, /home/abc/public_html, and /home/abc/public_html/abc in that order. In Apache 1.2, when /home/abc is considered, the regular expression will match and be applied. In Apache 1.3 the regular expression isn't considered at all at that point in the tree. It won't be considered until after all normal s and .htaccess files have been applied. Then the regular expression will match on /home/abc/public_html/abc and be applied."

I think, based on this information, that your php_value include_path statement is being evaluated after the .htaccess file. If that is the case, the value you use for include_path in the .htaccess is being overwritten. Can you try removing the include_path line from <Directory> temporarily to test this theory?