Basics:
When called from HTTP the working directory of index.php is C:\xampp\htdocs\actualframework\public\ when called from command line (in your example) it is C:\xampp\php. So the script tries to include C:\xampp\Framework/class/routers/System.php which isn't there.
You need to utilize the __DIR__ constant in order to make the require command working independently from where index.php was called:
require(__DIR__ . "/../Framework/class/routers/System.php");
__DIR__ points to the directory where the source file is located which is using the __DIR__ constant, in your example: C:\xampp\htdocs\actualframework\public\
Using include_path
Another good idea is to utilize the include_path directive in order to make the real location of a library file transparent to the application. This will give you more freedom when you once change the directory layout. include_path is a configuration value that can be set in php.ini or in scripts and contains a list od directories where php should look if you pass relative paths to require or include as well as some functions like file_get_contents(), fopen(), ...
Configure the include path on top of your index.php (or in a separate bootstrap.php which gets included):
ini_set('include_path', implode(PATH_SEPARATOR, array(
__DIR__ . '/../Framework/class',
__DIR__ . '/../Framework/interface',
// add the existing value at the end
ini_get('include_path')
)));
Now you can use paths like this to require classes:
require_once 'System.php';
require_once 'routers/Foo.php';
Autoloading
Since PHP5 there is a feature called autoloading which eases the including of classes. Autoloading basically provides the ability to define a hook function which gets called every time a class is accessed which has not been defined before. Imagine you have the following files:
lib/Person.php
<?php
class Person {
... some code
}
index.php
<?php
$hek2mgl = new Person();
Normally this code will trigger an error because Person is accessed without including lib/Person.php before. This is the point where autoloading can be used. Lets see how a simple autoload method can look like in this (simple example):
function autoload($classname) {
$path = __DIR__ . "/lib/$classname.php";
if(file_exists($path)) {
require_once $path;
}
}
You need to reqister the autoloader using spl_autoload_register(). index.php can look like this:
<?php
// define simple autoloader for project
function autoload($classname) {
$path = __DIR__ . "/lib/$classname.php";
if(file_exists($path)) {
require_once $path;
}
}
// register autoloader
spl_autoload_register('autoload');
// will work now
$hek2mgl = new Person();
If you ask me, autoloading is one of the coolest things in PHP5. You can refine the autoload method in order to work with the include_path directive. Doing so it gets easy to work with a couple of libraries without taking care about where they are physically stored in filesystem. You may give my Jm_Autloader a try, the code is on github and you can install it using PEAR or composer.
