How can I make PHP include/require compositional?

Question

I've been hit by the issue in this question: PHP's path resolution for include, require, require_once, etc., was not what I expected.

The root cause of this issue is apparently that paths in all PHP files are resolved relative to the location of the script that was initially executed. However, I, like many others, expected the resolution to be relative to the location of the file that the include/require is included in.

The answers to the question I linked to explain that behavior, but do not address how to work around it. It seems to me that PHP's resolution method is inherently non-compositional: every file must be written with the assumption that it is included from a specific location, which breaks the compositional principle that modules are self-contained.

So, how do I work around this? Is there a "fixed" version of require_once which uses the resolution semantics that I and other people expect?

If you want to include something from the current directory (or starting at the current directory following any path), why don't you specify it this way, letting the path starting with ./? Something like ./../f2/f2.inc.php may seem odd, but is perfectly valid. — Ulrich Thomas Gabor
– Ulrich Thomas Gabor, Commented Apr 3, 2014 at 13:59
@GhostGambler I don't understand. Isn't ./../f2/f2.inc.php equivalent to ../f2/f2.inc.php? Or does the ./ make PHP interpret it differently? — jameshfisher
– jameshfisher, Commented Apr 3, 2014 at 14:02
include paths, probably one of the least understood features of PHP — Mark Baker
– Mark Baker, Commented Apr 3, 2014 at 14:11
Yes, no, this also does not work. My bad. The __DIR__ solution is fine. Rather than including files manually you might want to use the autoloading functionality by the way. — Ulrich Thomas Gabor
– Ulrich Thomas Gabor, Commented Apr 3, 2014 at 14:11

halfer · Accepted Answer · 2014-04-03 15:16:13Z

3

Use __DIR__.

For example:

require __DIR__ .'/file_in_same_directory.php';

http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.constants.predefined.php

edited Apr 3, 2014 at 15:16

halfer

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answered Apr 3, 2014 at 13:57

edmondscommerce

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4 Comments

jameshfisher Over a year ago

Ah, okay. Yes, I can see that that would work. Is there a standard function/statement that abstracts over that, e.g. require_relative?

edmondscommerce Over a year ago

what would you want it to do?, eg do you need to `require(DIR .'/../../something_two_dirs_up.php'); sorry markdown is breaking this, you get the idea

jameshfisher Over a year ago

I'd expect some PHP statement that basically does: function require_once_relative($path) { require_once(__DIR__ . $path); }

edmondscommerce Over a year ago

you can always make it if you think its required. I personally don't like the idea, I would rather just see the path. Also PHPStorm works nicely with autocompleting paths when using __DIR__

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