note 56087 added to function.include

While I was developing a web application, I encountered a problem on including files. My goal was to centralize the include files into a single folder "includes" with all its sub-folders in it. Unlike the HTML link references, the include statement behaves differently. For example: Considering the following: DOCUMENT_ROOT/includes/header.php <a href="/includes/header.php"> -- will point to the header file regardless of where the page that has this achor is located. but, <?php include "/includes/header.php" ?> -- this will not work as the anchor tag. therefore, if I have the following structure: DOCUMENT_ROOT/includes/header.php DOCUMENT_ROOT/computers_and_internet/page1.php DOCUMENT_ROOT/computers_and_internet/articles/art1.php in the page1.php or art1.php I cannot just do: <?php include "/includes/header.php"; ?> so this is quite a problem if I have a very organized directory structure and I am including a file from a central location. Suppose you do not have access or full access to the server or the php.ini file, then this is really a trouble.. since you cannot just specify your include_path as you desired. The solution is to use dot notations in the includes references but this requires a lot of typing and attention in including the correct references to the files. What then? Use "ini_set." Again, since you can't be sure of the DOCUMENT_ROOT specially if you plan to host your web application to a different host. Also, $_SERVER["DOCUMENT_ROOT"] in IIS is not supported. Meaning, it will return an empty string.. To answer this, I've used the following snippet to set the include_path as desired. This will work regardless of the web server being used. /* START INCLUDE PATH SETTER */ ini_set("include_path", ini_get("include_path") . ";" . substr($currentFilePath = str_replace("\\", "/", __FILE__), 0, strpos($currentFilePath, $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'])) . "/your_includes_dir"); /* END INCLUDE PATH SETTER */ Then, on any page at wherever directory, considering: DOCUMENT_ROOT/your_includes_dir/header.php DOCUMENT_ROOT/your_includes_dir/header.php DOCUMENT_ROOT/your_includes_dir/database/sql_fns.php I can just do the following: <?php /* START INCLUDE PATH SETTER */ ini_set("include_path", ini_get("include_path") . ";" . substr($currentFilePath = str_replace("\\", "/", __FILE__), 0, strpos($currentFilePath, $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'])) . "/your_includes_dir"); /* END INCLUDE PATH SETTER */ include "header.php"; include "database/sql_fns.php"; ?> ---- Manual Page -- http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.include.php Edit -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=edit+56087 Delete: added to the manual -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=delete+56087&report=yes&reason=added+to+the+manual Delete: bad code -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=delete+56087&report=yes&reason=bad+code Delete: spam -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=delete+56087&report=yes&reason=spam Delete: useless -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=delete+56087&report=yes&reason=useless Delete: non-english -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=delete+56087&report=yes&reason=non-english Delete: other reasons -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=delete+56087&report=yes Reject -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=reject+56087&report=yes Search -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php