HEEELP...please

I absolutely cannot understand the include_path directive. Can somebody, please, explain this? I have a situation that I find absolutely incomprehensible: I moved my experimental web-site from FreeBSD 4.5 running php4 v. 4.0 (or something), apache 1.13 where thesite worked just fine to another box with FreeBSD 4.7 running php4 v. 4.2.3, apache 1.13.27_1. All of a sudden, I get the message: Warning: Failed opening '/../lib/somefile.conf' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/local/lib/php') in /usr/local/www/html/index.php on line 6 I can find nothing in the httpd.conf files that could account for this; there is no configuration in them for include_path. Obviously, the php file is being parsed correctly, but there is a problem with the line : include "$DOCUMENT_ROOT/../lib/somefile.conf". It works on one machine, but not on the latest version of php4 an apache. I see there are others on the net who have had this problem, but I have not yet found an explanation or a cure. HEEEEELP.... please, PJ