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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-26T21:46:36+00:00

Currently, for things like a header, footer or common sidebar object, I create a

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Currently, for things like a header, footer or common sidebar object, I create a custom .php file and do something along these lines:

echo '
    <some><html><here>
';

and then include it on the pages that I want it to appear:

include('path/to/file');

The only problem with this is that someone can point their browser to my .php file and view part of html on its own. It isn’t a huge deal, but it seems unprofessional and a little careless. Is there a better way of doing this?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    The simplest way is to move all those files outside the DocumentRoot / public directory and include them from there. Something like:

    include '../pages/header.php';
// rest of the script
include '../pages/bottom.php';

    Anyway that’s the purpose of that directory – to only hold things that are meant to be accessed directly.

    Of course, the first step after this would be to look into having only one index.php file which filters all the requests (permissions, filtering, rewrites, etc) and includes whatever is necessary based on the request (this is called a Front Controller and there are also a few lightweight frameworks which already implement it). Here’s a starting point: https://github.com/adrian-gheorghe/basic-website/blob/master/public/index.php

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