PHP Includes - Problem?

[chrischris]

Hi

I'm using PHP includes but I have a question about link references.
Do I have to change the reference manually for every new page I make? Or can I have a line of code which works for all pages, regardless of which folder they are in?

I understand about absolute, doc relative and root relative references but nothing I try seems to work...If I try a root relative on one page which works it doesn't seem to work for a page at another folder level in the directory.

<?php include 'includes/header.php'?>
<?php include '/includes/header.php'?>
<?php include './includes/header.php'?>
<?php include '/sitename/includes/header.php'?>
<?php include '../includes/header.php'?>
<?php include '../../includes/header.php'?>

Any help here guys? Bit confused - if the case is that every page's code needs to be different then how can I maintain a large database driven site easily?

Thanks

Chris

 

[MelisaMemo]

You can use a line of code which works for all pages.I am close to your answer will get back to you on this after confirming the code.

 

[chrischris]

Hey!

Thanks for your reply.

I found this answer somewhere! Because PHP doesn't understand the root relative links you have to use this: (although there are other ways).

This is because the root of the PHP server is different to the document's root.


<?php include($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . 'root relative link here'); ?>

Thanks!

Chris

 

[MarkR]

This is a common issue and there is a relatively easy we to resolve it. One way is to create a php file in your website's root directory (we'll call it loader.php) and put something like:

define( 'ROOT_PATH', dirname(__FILE__) . '/' );

Then at the top of all your first layer php files you can call:

require_once('loader.php');

or if it's in a sub directory:

require_once(dirname(dirname(__FILE__)) . '/loader.php');

You can now call every file from an absolute path relative to your root directory such as:

require_once(ROOT_PATH.'include/include_me.php');