Question

Sounds nit picky but this had me hung up for about an hour or so.

I have a path set like this in JavaScript

const JAVASCRIPT =              'host/source/ArcJB.js';

which renders in my document like this:

<script type="text/javascript" src="host/source/ArcJ.js"></script>

If I put in a preceding / it breaks the link.

In PHP, for server-side paths I use:

<?php
    include_once getcwd() . "/host/source/class.ControlEntry.php";

If I don’t put in the / it breaks things.

I guess conceptually how am I suppose to know this so I don’t have to pull my hair out with trial and error?

Also noted:

Paths inside my .js file work with either a / or not a / preceding the path.

These are used for image lookup or ajax calls.

Answer 1

Preceding slash is used to denote the path should be considered as an absolute path, which means,

1. For your Js path, which resides in a HTML file which is parsed by a browser to render its content, it should append what you wrote to the domain to get the file. And if your Js file is located relatively to the current page your snippet is located, the link may break.
2. For your php file, it is located in a path which can be accessed by following system root to host/source/class.ControlEntry.php