Question

I have the following directory structure:

/webroot
    /static
        /img
        /css
          - style.css
        /js
        /pdf
        /mp3
        /mp4
    - index.php

In my 'index.php' I have the following code:

// define the frontend path constant
$frontend = realpath(dirname(__FILE__));
define('__FRONTEND__', $frontend);

I have my templates in the backend (outside webroot) and when I code something like this:

<link type="text/css" 
      rel="stylesheet" 
      href="<?php echo __FRONTEND__; ?>/static/css/style.css"
/>

The CSS code is not shown. I don’t get a warning either. When I look in the source I see:

<link type="text/css" 
      rel="stylesheet" 
      href="C:\xampp\htdocs\projectx\webroot/static/css/style.css"
/>

Here you see the different slashes: '\' vs '/'. Strangely, using the same kind of structure doesn’t fail on my backend constant '__BACKEND__' which I also have in my 'index.php':

// define the frontend path constant
$backend = realpath(dirname(__FILE__) . '/../backend');
define('__BACKEND__', $backend);

Why does my '__FRONTEND__' constant fail?

Answer 1

You shouldn’t use realpath(dirname(__FILE__)) in your templates. It’s the system’s path, not the one that your users will have access to.

If your web root is webroot/ as you say, then href="/static/css/style.css" will do the trick.

Also, your problem has nothing to do with slashes and backslashes, both work in Windows.