Newbie Include Help

Anon

OK, I'm really new to PHP and this is one of the first times I've tried to use it. On my site I have a table I want content to be entered to, and be changed by links on the side, simple. so I wrote this;

<?php
if (!$section)
include "/var/www/htdocs/news/news.txt";
include "$section";
?>

I wrote the if part so it would default to news.txt is nothing is entered for section. The only problem now is when it defaults to news.txt I also get this error:

Warning: Failed opening '' for inclusion (include_path='') in /var/www/htdocs/index.php on line 88

Now this is obviously from it trying to load section when nothing is there. How do I fix this, there obviously some code or something I'm missing here. Any help would be apreciated, thanks!

Anon

First off, I think you should use this syntax for includes:

include( $filename );

Secondly, I think that your problem is that you are specifying the path to the include. I believe that when you use an include, PHP looks in the current directory where the calling file is located, and in all of folders listed in the include_path variable in the PHP.ini file. I dont think you can specify paths in the include argument. So, you need to edit your PHP.ini file to have the path where you store your includes.

bravo

editing the .ini file did allow me to change it so I don't have to use the full path but I still get the error.

Warning: Failed opening '' for inclusion (include_path='/var/www/htdocs/') in /var/www/htdocs/index.php on line 88

it's on line 88 which would be is the last line in the code:
if (!$section)
include( "news/news.txt" );
include( $section );

Thus I would suspect it is still trying to load $section when nothing is there.

Anon

I think you're missing an else:

<?php
if (!$section)
include "/var/www/htdocs/news/news.txt";
else
include "$section";
?>

Anon

Pardon me, but that won't work:-)
Either swap the include lines or drop the !