PHP - Relative paths "require"

Question

My directory structure looks like this:

blog -> admin -> index.php
blog.php
db.php
functions.php

I have been trying to include (require, really) blog.php in the admin/index.php, but facing lots of errors. I'm following a PHP course, and the instructor does the same thing successfully.

admin/index.php:

require "../blog.php";

which, in turn, requires two more files in its directory.

require "db.php";
require "functions.php";

I think you need to just step it out a level, ie. ../../blog.php assuming that blog.php is not in the blog folder. — prodigitalson
– prodigitalson, Commented Dec 16, 2012 at 5:33
I don't think that would work. blog.php is in the blog directory. — Rafay
– Rafay, Commented Dec 16, 2012 at 5:35
Ahh your notation of directory structure was confusing to me :-) — prodigitalson
– prodigitalson, Commented Dec 16, 2012 at 21:47

Sam Dufel · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-16 05:40:52Z

43

If you find that relative include paths aren't working as expected, a quick fix is to prepend __DIR__ to the front of the path you're trying to include.

require __DIR__ . "/../blog.php";

It's reasonably clean, and you don't need to modify the include path or working directory.

answered Dec 16, 2012 at 5:40

Sam Dufel

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3 Comments

Rafay Over a year ago

This worked. Thanks! Though I have no idea why do I have to do this. The instructor gets away with require "../blog.php"; without any problem. Is it because of OS differences? He's on Mac, and I am on Windows.

Sam Dufel Over a year ago

I'm actually not entirely sure - I believe it has to do with the current working directory not always matching the script's directory.

prodigitalson Over a year ago

@Rafay: its a bad practice anyway. You should always calculate the absolute path and then require/include.

Andy Lester · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-16 05:34:57Z

3

You need to set the include_path in your php.ini.

If you want to set it at run-time, use set_include_path().

answered Dec 16, 2012 at 5:34

Andy Lester

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Comments

Yogesh Suthar · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-16 05:31:52Z

2

If you are including this files db.php and functions.php in index.php then you have to write this code

require "../db.php";
require "../functions.php";

OR if you are including this files in blog.php then write this code

require "db.php";
require "functions.php";

answered Dec 16, 2012 at 5:31

Yogesh Suthar

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Comments

Niet the Dark Absol · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-16 05:30:03Z

-3

I like to start my files with chdir($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']). This allows me to get a nice and logical base path for all my includes.

answered Dec 16, 2012 at 5:30

Niet the Dark Absol

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3 Comments

Andy Lester Over a year ago

That's why you have the include_path directive in the php.ini.

Niet the Dark Absol Over a year ago

include_path doesn't apply for things like file_exists though ;)

Mario Mueller Over a year ago

and one file operation per php file with no real use. Consider using PSR-0 or using DIR.

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