Server sides includes - virtual() with IIS

metallus

I am developing a web page in dreamweaver. i am using iis, php, mysql. on one of my webpages i tried to use php function virtual() , but it didnt work. then i read the dreamweaver help and found out that this function will only work if i am using apache server. but the dreamweaver help also states that under specific circumstances the iis server is able to process this php function. Therefore id like to know what i should do to get this function going, because i dont want to use the file function instead. Thx

jkurrle

I don't know what it takes for IIS, but in Apache, you have to edit the httpd.conf file. This file is what holds the startup configuration for the server. If I were to add server side includes (shtml files), I'd do the following:

Edit the DirectoryIndex line to include index.shtml, like this:

DirectoryIndex index.html index.shtml index.html.var

I would then remove the comments from the following two lines, to enable shtml files to be filtered before processing:

AddType text/html .shtml
AddOutputFilter INCLUDES .shtml

I would then edit this line to append "Includes" on the end:

Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes

This is an example of what I'd do under Apache. For you, I'd start reading your IIS configuration file and use Google to see if you can do something similar.

metallus

And if i want the server side include file to have extension .php, then how do i have to set up the httpd.conf file???

jkurrle

Hmm. I think we are not communicating properly. When you were talking about server side includes, I thought you meant shtml files. You are simply looking to have IIS to process PHP correctly, try the following:

1) Enter IIS Management Console
2) Right-click on your Web site
3) Select Properties
4) Select the Home Directory tab
5) Click the Configuration button
6) Choose the App Mappings tab
7) Click Add
8) In the Executable box, type the path to the PHP interpreter (php-cgi.exe)
9) In the Extension box, type .php
10) Select the Script Engine check box
11) Click OK.

This is taken verbatim from my PHP & MySQL book. I don't really know IIS, but I suspect this will take care of your issues.

Good Luck

metallus

When i try to use

<?php virtual('/menu_include.shtml'); ?>

in my index.php, then in the browser i get this error:

Warning: virtual() [function.virtual]: Unable to include '/menu_include.shtml' - request execution failed in C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\TestPHP\index.php on line 76

Whats wrong??

metallus

i am no longer using iis, i switched to apache. i tried to set httpd.conf as you wrote above but i still get the aforementioned error.

metallus

in the httpd.conf i also found this

To parse .shtml files for server-side includes (SSI):

(You will also need to add "Includes" to the "Options" directive.)

But what is the options directory?? where am i supposed to add the "Includes" string??

jkurrle

The Options directive is the line that starts with the word "Options". I already mentioned it in my first reply. Chances are, you already modified it.

When including a server side include, you usually include it as an HTML command. Something like this:

This will cause a file called header.shtml located in the document root to be included.

When including PHP files into your code, the PHP syntax for this would be like this:

<?php include("myfile.php"); ?>

If you have your html files set to run through the PHP preprocessor first, your php include code can be buried right into the HTML file. It's handy to use, but if you are building portable code, don't program this way as a lot of people don't choose to do this.

A good overview of includes can be found at http://www.outfront.net/tutorials_02/getting_started/includes2.htm

Hope this helps.

jkurrle

Incidently, I think the way you would run the virtual() command would be something like this:

Assuming you want to load a server side include named bob.shtml...

virtual("bob.shtml");