virtual host problem

I have a site on a host that gives me everything I need, mod_rewrite, lots of stuff. I am JUST NOW on it. I have a problem though. I can't get php to include anything out of the document root. When I use ftp or telnet, the directories show up as /var/www/html for doc root and /var/www/rsrcs/..... for the directories I want to store includes, etc. in. That's all fine, I tried using those directory names and php could not open the files. Doesn't say whether they exist or not. FIRST QUESTION: are those errors in the apache log, or just the php error file? To learn more, I put the phpinfo(); function in my document root, and lo and behold, I get this long a gnarly virtual path: /home/virtual/site26/fst/var/www/html/ as my document root. So I try: /home/virtual/site26/fst/var/www/rsrcs/.... for my includes, and still can't get to it. SECOND QUESTION: are there any virtual host gurus who can tell me how to get Apache/PHP to include files from outside of the document root on virtual hosted systems? PLEASE CC ME, I'm on DIGEST. Thank you VERY much IN ADVANCE! -- If You want to buy computer parts, see the reviews at: http://www.cnet.com/ **OR EVEN BETTER COMPILATIONS**!! http://sysopt.earthweb.com/userreviews/products/