Question

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PHP: Why such weird behaviour when I include a file from another directory which also includes a file?

I have a problem including a file that has an included file.

• core.inc.php PATH: www/test/includes/core.inc.php

• included file in core.inc.php : include_once ('../../connectdb.php');

• connectdb.php PATH: www/connectdb.php

• index.php PATH: www/test/index.php

• included file in index.php : include_once ('included/core.inc.php');

When I run index.php the following warnings are popping up:

(!) Warning: include_once(../../connectdb.php): failed to open stream:
No such file or directory in G:\wamp\www\test\includes\core.inc.php on line 7

(!) Warning: include_once(): Failed opening '../../connectdb.php' for
inclusion (include_path='.;C:\php\pear') in G:\wamp\www\test\includes\core.inc.php on line 7

In order to dinamically change the included paths what is the best practice? Please help me on my problem. Thank you.

Answer 1

To avoid such problems, you may use PHP magic constant __DIR__ which will be replaced by current file’s directory.

For example:

include_once(__DIR__ . '/relative/path/to/file-to-include.php'); 

Note that __DIR__ is only available for PHP 5.3+. Below that version you can replace __DIR__ by dirname(__FILE__)

BTW, autoloading is a good practice to avoid includes mess.