problems with paths

RussW

Hi All

In the testweb directory I have index.php which has require("includes/topav.inc") in it topnav.inc loads 4 images from the images directory under the includes directory. The topnav.inc has code like so:
"<IMG SRC = "includes/images/topnav/welcome.jpeg">"

However, when I load band.php from the testweb/band directory, which uses the same topnav.inc file the graphics do not load. Probably has to do with the defined path for the image but I don't know how to make it work for any page no matter where I use the include file.

How do I fix this?

Thanks in advance
Russ

Christopher_Daw

getcwd() will return you the path to the place the script is being run from, so if you split on testroot, the second part of the string will tell you where you currently are. You could then do something like count the number of / and then add that number of ../ onto the front of the path to the images.

Chris

gid

careful when naming your include files with .inc, because if I can guess the name of your include or a php file shows a warning with the filename in it or whatever, then I can request the file and get the code from that file.

So make sure you add the .inc type to your webserver so php processes it, or do as I do, and name all you include files like _includefile.php.

I use the _ to denote it's a library file with commonly used user defined functions.

As for the path problem. I either keep everything in the same directory. The _include files are all clumped together so it usually works out well.

Or I use subdirectories. So my root has only a index.php with no includes and redirects to a subdir/index.php.
Then I can keep my files to be included in the root. No files in the root do the including, only the files in the subdirs do.

Then in subdir/index.php I can:
require('../_library.php');

Make sense? I think I even confuse myself sometimes.

jwalk76

instead of this:

<IMG SRC = "includes/images/topnav/welcome.jpeg">

try this:

<IMG SRC = "/includes/images/topnav/welcome.jpeg">

* note the path begins with a "/"

Julian_Pedley

Originally posted by gid
careful when naming your include files with .inc, because if I can guess the name of your include or a php file shows a warning with the filename in it or whatever, then I can request the file and get the code from that file.

So make sure you add the .inc type to your webserver so php processes it, or do as I do, and name all you include files like _includefile.php.

Make sense? I think I even confuse myself sometimes.

Even better, put the include directory above your document root so that it is not accessible except to scripts. i.e /home/user/includes/ and home/user/public_html/

RussW

To all who replied I wish to say thanks!

The info you provided is quite useful and informative. I'll be using your tips as I build my first php web site!

Regards
Russ

RussW

Originally posted by Julian Pedley

Even better, put the include directory above your document root so that it is not accessible except to scripts. i.e /home/user/includes/ and home/user/public_html/

but now in the in the file /home/about/theband/theband.php
I have the following code
"require(_topnav.php)"

Which no longer works. I moved the includes to the same level as the home directory so only the scripts can access it. How do I set the require to find the includes which are in the folder /includes?

Regards
Russ

Julian_Pedley

Assuming you are on an Apache system, create / update the .htaccess file in the DOCUMENT Root with something similar to this line:

php_value include_path .:/home/<dir>/includes/:/usr/lib/php/

I have two paths - the first points to my includes directory, the second to where the PEAR class libraries are to be found, which are bundles with php, which you may not want yet.

There are other ways to skin this cat - see 'ini_set' function in the php docs.

jwalk76

you need either an absolute file system path or a path relative to your script that's calling the include:

absolute starting at "/":

 
require("/var/www/includes/_topnav.php");

relative:

 
require("../../../includes/_topnav.php");

RussW

Julian
Thanks for Your Reply
Yes this is an apache server on linux but it is a commercial web server and I will probably not have access to .ht_access file.

I'll check out ini_set function and see if I can set the value when the user comes to the site.

Regards
Russ

gid

Originally posted by Julian Pedley

Even better, put the include directory above your document root so that it is not accessible except to scripts. i.e /home/user/includes/ and home/user/public_html/

Well personally I only delcare functions and assign variables values in my _file.php include files, so someone can execute those files all they want and they're never return anything. Plus if I put them in the webroot, it's more condusive to using our inhouse cvsphp versioning tool, and it means I don't have to mess around with any ini settings, or set my include path, all of which I might not be able to easily do on a client's hosting account. (although we usually do the hosting for most of our projects, but there are always exceptions)

That's the great thing about php, there's so many ways to do something, so just pick which way works best for you. 🙂

Julian_Pedley

Originally posted by gid

Well personally I only delcare functions and assign variables values in my _file.php include files, so someone can execute those files all they want and they're never return anything. Plus if I put them in the webroot, it's more condusive to using our inhouse cvsphp versioning tool, and it means I don't have to mess around with any ini settings, or set my include path, all of which I might not be able to easily do on a client's hosting account. (although we usually do the hosting for most of our projects, but there are always exceptions)

That's the great thing about php, there's so many ways to do something, so just pick which way works best for you. 🙂

Yes, I take your points and respect the practical considerations. Still, on balance I would think its worthwhile to set include_path because that restricts all includes to that path(s). . and as it can be set in each script wonder if it's that difficult to set per client / project....🙂

gid

And that's the thing, you'd have to make a separate include dir for each client. The more you get, the more places php has to look just to include a file. What if you have 100 sites on a server, do you have 100 include paths then? If so, then that's going to be slooooow. Or can you have separate include paths for each virtual server or what? It's just something we've never really bothered with because we didnt feel the need to slow things down, and make it harder for us to push a site live. Plus the tradeoff of a little more security over convenience didn't seem worth it.

The big thing now would be our in house versioning tool, we'd have to create a project_include for each project we do, and we already have enough clutter in that directory without doubling everything.

I dunno, maybe I am just stubborn and stuck in my ways. 🙂

Julian_Pedley

It can be good to be stuck in your ways... "if it ain't bust dont fix it!":p

The include paths would be set in the .htaccess of each clients document root so they each only have to look at theor own path. Standard naming of include dirs would help. You might have a global include path for classes / object libraries etc which are referred to by every clients core apps... eg sql abstraction, PEAR, templates etc;it would actually make the system more efficient because a single copy of the class definition file would be cached (I am guessing here!) rather than once copy for each client.

Cheers

gid

We actually have .htaccess files disabled for security reasons, and speed reasons. So I could probably add each include patch in the httpd.conf section for each "web server".