Question

I have some images in drupal/sites/default/files/images/.

How can I get the absolute path for an image like abc.jpg placed in this directory?

Answer 1

If Drupal is on its own domain (i.e., http://example.com), the absolute path would be /sites/default/files/images/abc.jpg.

If Drupal is in a subfolder (e.g. http://example.com/drupal), the absolute path would be /drupal/sites/default/files/images/abc.jpg.

---

As I explained in my answer on the same question you deleted, if you are trying to programmatically generate the path (that is, you do not know where the file directory is), you need to use file_directory_path():

$image = file_directory_path() . "/images/abc.jpg";

So if the files are in:

• sites/default/files: $image = "sites/default/files/images/abc.jpg".
• sites/example.com/files: $image = "sites/example.com/files/images/abc.jpg".

---

Assuming your previous question is still the use-case, you should be using l() and theme_image() to generate the links and images, respectively, within your module. This will ensure the paths generated are correct given Drupal’s environment.

Using the expected output you provided before, a solution would be:

// Images are in drupalroot/sites/default/files/images
$path = file_directory_path() . '/images/';

$detail_file = 'detail_1.jpg';
$image_file  = '1.jpg';

$img = theme('image', $path . $image_file);

$options = array(
  'attributes' => array(
    'title' => t('Sample title for image 1 lorem ipsum'),
  ),
  'html' => TRUE,
);
$output = l($img, $path . $detail_file, $options);

So, assuming your site is at http://example.com/, the output would be:

<a href="/sites/default/files/images/default_1.jpg" title="Sample title for image 1 lorem ipsum">
  <img src="/sites/default/files/images/1.jpg" height="<image height>" width="<image width>" />
</a>

But if your site was in a subfolder (e.g. http://example.com/drupal), the output would be:

<a href="/drupal/sites/default/files/images/default_1.jpg" title="Sample title for image 1 lorem ipsum">
  <img src="/drupal/sites/default/files/images/1.jpg" height="<image height>" width="<image width>" />
</a>