[RESOLVED] php includes...how do they work

[yahyac]

Okay, the subject seems perhaps too straightforward, so I will explain what I need to do.

And before I get slammed for admitting the following, please know that I learned html by hand-coding in notepad. People would ask what program i used, and i never knew what they meant. Anyway, years passed, and I worked for a company that used Frontpage and for whatever reason, it stuck with me. Yeah, it has problems, but I use it. Still do mostly hand coding, but never the less, I use frontpage and have always used their include function. Most sites I design have a common header, sidebar, and footer, and therefore, it is nice to simply include that file and update only the one header.html file, for example, and then have that update affect all the other pages.

So my question is does the php include work this way, and if so, could you please give me the syntax.

And along with this, part 2 of the question is regards to how well the php include works. What I mean by this is the following. For frontpage, even if I included the file via the frontpage instruction/coding, but if i then went and hand-edited the particular included file in question, the changes would not propogate throughout the site when viewed in a browser. The only way to get the changes to propogate throughout the site would be to make the changes, to the included file, in frontpage.

So that is also something I"m looking to not have to deal with. So does the php include basically work immediately and you can just hand-code the changes, and then BAM, the changes show all throughout the site?

Thanks.
Jonathan

[tek-69]

like yourself I've always hand-coded. I use vim myself instead of notepad. In regards to includes, theyre really simple and I've been using them for a long time with no problems, here's how.
to functions you need two remember are include() and set_include_path(). the first is for the actual include, place it where you want your code block to go. The second tells php where to look for the file if it's not in the working directory.

example:
set_include_path( "/path/to/inc/directory" );
include( "my_kickass_codeblock" );

thats really all there is to it. It makes reusing code a snap. hope this helped you out.

[yahyac]

Thanks for the reply. Now i have a specific question on the syntax. I found the following online:

This final step is how you include the first page with your snippet of HTML inside of your second HTML page.

Where you left that space for the menu, include this piece of code:

<?php include('menu.php'); ?>
Then save the file. As long as you have the correct path to your menu.php code this will work once you upload both pages to your PHP compatible server.

I don't suggest using the previous code since it relies on relative paths, and since you will want to use these page includes across your site you will want to use absolute paths.

To use absolute paths, use the following code where the first slash indicates starting from the domain name:

<?php include($DOCUMENT_ROOT . "/incudedfiles/menu.php"); ?>

So is it best to write an include according to the line just above?

Thanks.

[yahyac]

My site is first developed on my computer and then uploaded as it is ready. As such, i just tried the command above,

<?php include($DOCUMENT_ROOT . "/incudedfiles/menu.php"); ?>

and it was not working on my computer. I do have appache installed, and I assumed (obviously wrongly) that $Document_Root would take me to the root of the server, just like it would take me to the root of a domain. But that doesn't seem to work.

So i then changed the command to the following:
<?php include("http://www.mydomain.com/incudes/header.html"); ?>

The header did show up, but the rest of the page just did weird stuff. And maybe this is because the header was a "live", online included file, whereas the rest of the site was on my computer. I dunno.

So is there a way proper syntax for doing these includes so that it works both on the local machine and on a live site, without having to change the coding?

Thanks.

[thorpe]

The best (IMO) method is to put all your includes in a certain directory, then use [man]set_include_path[/man] to help include them easily.

[yahyac]

Sure, and that is what i do, regarding putting all my includes in a directory...actually, it is called "includes". But the question is how do I properly code the include command using php so that this include command works for the site on my computer and the site online without having to change anything?

And if i use the set_include_path command, is there a way to, again, set it up in such a manner that it will work for both.

Thanks.

[yahyac]

What is weird is that it is working when i code it like this:

<?php include($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . "/includes/header.html"); ?>

Is that a normal way of writing the include?

[yahyac]

I tell you what, this include is a beautiful thing.

Because my includes are used on over 600 some odd pages, when I edit one of those included pages in frontpage, it takes like 5 minutes to save, as it basically, in the background, makes sure that each page is updated with the new include.

Whereas, I simply made a tiny change to the header in notepad, saved it, and then the page with the php include was automatically updated. Nice. Very nice.

So now i just want to make sure I'm using the correct syntax.

[thorpe]

Yes, doing...

<?php include($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . "/includes/header.html"); ?>

is pretty standard practice.

[yahyac]

so is there any reason then for doing the set_include_path command? Is this just duplicating things?

Thanks.

[thorpe]

It can help to make things simpler on larger projects, but isn't always needed.