Question

I am developing a web application. contents are:

• root dir (/var/www/)

config.php

index.php

details.php

• admin dir (/var/www/admin)

admin.php

I have included config.php file into index.php, details.php in root directory using require_once(‘config.php’) as this file contains database passwords, styles, images directory paths..

how can i include that config files in my admin/admin.php file so that one config file can be used in anywhere(even in subdirectories) of my web application. Will it make any difference for the value of define('APP_BASE_PATH', dirname(__FILE__)); when same config file is used by all files in the web application.

if i am wrong somewhere then please get me right.

Answer 1

Update after clarification in comments: You are looking for a way to include a central configuration file from anywhere in your project’s folder structure.

@Col. Shrapnel shows one way, DOCUMENT_ROOT. It’s the only way to use an “absolute” path from a nested folder structure. It has the limitation I describe above, but it’s fine otherwise.

If you want maximum portability (i.e. the possibility to run the app with e.g. www.example.com/myapp/version_1 as its root directory), you would have to use relative references from within your folder structure to “climb down” to the config file, e.g. ../../config.php that will work reliably too, although be a bit cumbersome e.g. if you move a script to a different folder and you have to update the relative path.