Problem using include() in subdirectories

[seegoon]

Hi there. You guys are going to save my life.

I've recently started changing a site from plain ol' html to php, so that I can use includes for headers, footers and so on, and also so that in the future dynamically creating pages won't be a problem.

I have includes working a-okay at the moment for files in the root directory, i.e. in http://buddingpress.co.uk/sitemap.php I have three functional includes, all basically using the code:

<?php include("includes/footer.php"); ?>

The problem is that I want to use includes for pages in subdirectories, i.e. http://buddingpress.co.uk/contact/index.php – but the darn thing just doesn't work the same. Inserting a slash, as you might with an image or href or whatever, doesn't seem to work. It actually sends the whole thing berserk.

So is there a nice, attractive fix? Or do I have to just direct the includes by using an entire url, including the http://? I'm sure this is a php basic that I'm just ignorant of.

Thanks for reading!

[Dormilich]

the best approach is usually to use absolute paths (like "/var/www/index.php")
if you define a constant in your base file, you can use this constant to extend any relative paths to absolute paths.

// if this is called in a file in the base directory
	# root directory of project
	define("BASE_DIR", realpath(dirname(__FILE__))); 

// use as
include BASE_DIR . "includes/footer.php";

note: personally I define this constant in a conf script, that is called in every page.
.htaccess (root folder)

php_value include_path ".:/path/where/load.php/resides"

any PHP page

<?php
// a configuration script that calls all the settings
// the "include_path" setting makes sure, this works from every folder
require "load.php";

// rest of the code

directory configuration file (called in load.php)

// the root folder is 2 directories above this file’s folder
	# root directory of project
	define("BASE_DIR", realpath(dirname(__FILE__)) . '/../../');

example of a load.php

<?php
/* load settings & constants */
	
	# directroy constants
	require 'conf.dir.php';
	
	# common flags
	require CONF_DIR . 'conf.flags.php'; // CONF_DIR has been defined in "conf.dir.php"
	
	# project settings
	require CONF_DIR . 'conf.settings.php';
	
	# DB constants
	require CONF_DIR . 'conf.db.php';
	
/* autoload functions */
	
	# loading standard classes via __autoload()
	require CONF_DIR . 'autoloads.php';
	spl_autoload_register('AL_interface');
	spl_autoload_register('AL_swift4');
	spl_autoload_register('AL_main');
	
	# load all exception classes too
	require LIB_DIR  . 'classes.exceptions.php';
	
/* error/exception handling */
	
	require LIB_DIR . 'main.errorhandler.php';
	require LIB_DIR . 'main.exceptionhandler.php';
?>

[seegoon]

Wow - there's certainly a lot more for me to learn before I can go messing around with code like this. For the time being, I've just told it to track backwards, using ../ in the address. I just need to spend a bit more time reading up on my basics; I only started thinking about using it yesterday. There will be plenty of roadbumps along the way. Thanks for your answers anyway, though!

[Dormilich]

There will be plenty of roadbumps along the way.

things you should be looking for when getting an error:

• carefully read the error description, it usually provides some kind of solution
• look for missing ";", ")" or "}"
• look for typos in variable names or parameter values