Question

I have many PHP files in

/
/client/
/user/
/config/
etc...

I want all my files to include /user/codestart.php. (Lots of functions etc)

Therefore:

• All files in / have include("./user/codestart.php");
• All files in /user/ have include("codestart.php");
• All files in /client/ have include("../user/codestart.php");

The problem is that /user/codestart.php has include("../config/config.php"); (The MySQL ID and password)

When a file in / runs, such as /index.php, it includes ./user/codestart.php.
Then /user/codestart.php includes ../config/config.php, but it cannot see it, because it thinks it is calling it from /, instead of from /user/.

If I change
include("../config/config.php") to be
include("./config/config.php")
that fixes it for / files, but breaks it for/user/ and/client/ files.

Bottom line is that when one PHP file includes another file, PHP thinks it is operating from the location of the original file, not the calling file.

I need to use relative paths, not absolute paths. Absolute paths will not work in my situation.

Is there any way to solve this?

Answer 1

One way to deal with this is this:

• Have a central configuration file (e.g. /myproject/config/bootstrap.php

• In that configuration file, define a global root for your application. E.g.

  define("APP_ROOT", realpath(dirname(__FILE__)."/.."));
  

• Include that configuration file in every PHP file. E.g.

  include("../config/bootstrap.php");
  

• Whenever you reference some other file, use

  include APP_ROOT."/includes/somefile.php";
  

Voilá – you have a fixed point in space (APP_ROOT) and can reference everything relative to that, no matter which directory you are in.