Question

I’m trying to do some PHP development but I can’t figure out how to reference my class in another PHP file. I am using CI as my MVC framework and under ‘Application’ I have created a folder called, ‘domain’ where I am placing my domain specific objects.

I have a class called ‘user’ defined in a file called ‘User.php’. So ‘domain/User.php’

I am trying to reference this class in another PHP file like this:

<?php

require('domain/User.php');

..

?>

This blows up with this error:

Failed opening required ‘domain/User.php’ (include_path=’.:/usr/lib/php’)

So, clearly, I don’t know how this is done in PHP. So can someone help me out?

Thanks!

Answer 1

You need to make sure you’re referencing the correct path. If you’re creating a new CI Controller (i.e. a controller that extends the core CI_Controller), you can easily solve this by using:

include (APPPATH . 'domain/User.php');

Otherwise, you can find the absolute path of the current file by using:

$current_path = dirname(__FILE__);

Allowing you to reference whatever external file you want relative to the current file you’re using:

include ($current_path . '../domain/User.php');

You can then reference all your external controllers and methods without any trouble. If you wanted to run function_a() in an external file, you’d need to use:

$this->user = new User();
$this->user->function_a();

You could put these loads into a __construct function to avoid repetition in your code.