Re: dirname(__FILE__)

On 9/20/05, Markus Albe <malbe@adinet.com.uy> wrote: > Hi everybody, > > I'm new to the list and I haven't had time to check if this was already > discussed: > > Why not make mandatory the use of "dirname(__FILE__)" prepended to > includes of other PEAR libraries? > > Why? To avoid problems with dependencies on servers that don't have PEAR > installed or that don't have the PEAR path in the include path (I know > this can be easily added in a common file, but that makes PEAR libraries > that depend on other PEAR packages less "drop-in'ish", because it relays > on the assumption that the system where the package is to be used > already has a file common to all scripts... Also the .htaccess solution > isn't great, and it costs Apache quite a few bytes of extra memory...:-\) > > Let's take HTML_Page2 as an example, it depends on HTML_Common. > My dir structure looks like: > > /var/www/project/bin /* where my scripts are located */ > /var/www/project/lib/PEAR /* where I uploaded PEAR */ > > If the PEAR path is not set in the include path, and I include > HTML_Page2 from a script in the "bin" dir like > "include_once dirname(__FILE__).'/../lib/PEAR/HTML/Page2.php';" > PHP won't be able to find HTML/Common.php when HTML_Page2 tries to > include it like "require_once 'HTML/Common.php';". > If instead it required the file like > "require_once dirname(__FILE__).'../HTML/Common.php';" it won't > fail... > Since file paths must match class names, it's not so hard to determine > the number of '..' needed, and it could be even automated somehow (I'm > sure we can come up with some simple method for it) > > I know it may not look so refined as the current technique does, but so > far this is the only way to avoid having to append the PEAR path to the > include path; I only have to have properly include the lib I want and > that's all. > > I haven't tested the performance of this, but I'm using it in all my > scripts and it doesn't seems to affect at all...(of course there's some > overhead, but probably PHP also has some overhead for resolving a > relative path agains the full path this technique provides) > > Hope to hear from your nice community :) > Aside from the fact that this solution is less elegant and more verbose, it really doesn't add any real value. I don't understand why it's a problem to append the PEAR path to the include path. You say that a .htaccess causes more memory to be used. Do you have any numbers on this? How about compared to other methods? I doubt that using dirname() and multiple ".." for every include is going to be faster than a properly set include_path. Remember that you can also set include_path per virtual host or directory from within the Apache config. So if you have a way of altering the Apache config (a nice admin or a special config file in your directory) you can do it this way as well. -- Justin Patrin