complicated php include problem

[yahyac]

Hey peoples,

On all my pages, I have a common header, sidebar, and footer. And for these pages, i use the php include command in order to include them into the appropriate pages.

A while back i inquired as to the best syntax to make my includes portable; meaning, i wanted them to work on my local machine AND on the live site. After several posts on the subject and some help from some long-time posters here, I decided to go with the following syntax:

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

This worked great on my local machine, as it resolved to http://localhost/includes/header.php

Well, i recently uploaded my local site to the live site and that option may not work. Because the $SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] is referencing the document root of Apache, on the server, and i have no control over where this root is assigned (i'm on shared hosting).

As such, again, in an effort to make portable code, i decided to go with another syntax, which is almost pefectly portable:

<?php include 'http://' . $domain . '/includes/header.php';  ?>

where $domain is a variable that is defined in a global.php file that gives the db host, username, password, etc, and this file is included on all pages.

So on my local machine, I set $domain to be "localhost" and on the live site, I set it to be "www.mydomainname.com". Simple enough right? And yes, it does work BOTH on the local and the live site. And it should work, as the syntax is straightfoward.

BUT...

I problem creeped in...

Because my site includes a custom build shopping cart made from SESSIONS (this is the key here), in the aforementioned header.php file, i have a line that prints either (a) Your cart is empty, or (b) You have X items in your cart. Thus, on the top of every page, in the header, you see that line.

The code that is used for this is pasted below, and it now includes a bunch of debugging echo statements.

<?php
	if (count($_SESSION['cart']) == 0) {
		echo '<img border="0" src="/images/cart.gif" align="absbottom" width="17" height="12"></a>';
		echo '<span class="content7i_blue">&nbsp;&nbsp;';
		echo "(Your cart is empty.)";
		echo count($_SESSION['cart']);  //for debugging

	// the following if/else statement is ONLY for debugging purposes
	if (isset($_SESSION['cart'])) {
		echo "it is set";
	}
	else
		echo "not set";	
}
elseif (count($_SESSION['cart']) == 1){
	echo '<img border="0" src="/images/cart_f.gif" align="absbottom" width="17" height="12"></a>';
	echo '<span class="content7i_blue">&nbsp;&nbsp;';
	echo "(You have 1 item in your cart.)";
}
else {
	echo '<img border="0" src="/images/cart_f.gif" align="absbottom" width="17" height="12"></a>';
	echo '<span class="content7i_blue">&nbsp;&nbsp;';
	echo "(You have ";
	echo count($_SESSION['cart']);						
	echo " items in your cart.)";
}
?>

The problem is that even when i add stuff to the cart, the line in the header still prints out "Your cart is empty." Further, I print out how many items are in the cart by using the following line: echo count($_SESSION['cart']). When i print this from the header, it gives 0, which is wrong.

So you may figure, okay, well, perhaps the cart is indeed empty. Nope. When i click on the mycart icon (takes me to mycart.php), I display the contents of the cart. Sure enough, if there are three items, ALL THREE items show. If there are five items, five items show, etc, etc.

And just for the heck of it, i put the same line of code from above, echo count($_SESSION['cart']); , directly above where the cart contents are displayed. And it DOES show the correct amount of items in the cart.

That is so crazy, let me repeat: if i put the SAME EXACT LINE OF CODE:

echo count($_SESSION['cart']);

directly above the tabular display of the cart contents, it DOES PRINT OUT THE CORRECT NUMBER OF ITEMS!

So I'm viewing one page, and the same line of code, echo count($_SESSION['cart']) , gives two different results. One line is used in the header.php file, which is included in mycart.php, and this line of code produces 0 as the result, and then when i use that same line later in the ACTUAL page, mycart.php, i get the real result.

Now, for those of you few still reading to this point, here's the kicker: when you access the header.php page DIRECTLY, meaning you go view that actual page (http://www.mydomain.com/includes/header.php), it now displays the CORRECT RESULT!

SO, something funky is going on when the page is included using the syntax I gave:

<?php include 'http://' . $domain . '/includes/header.php';  ?>

Apparently, based on the debugging statements i echoed on the page, the $_SESSION variables are not carrying through to the included portion of the code.

But when i change the syntax back to the first one shown:

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

it works fine with NO PROBLEMS. But as mentioned, this only works on my local machine, and I have to use the second syntax shown at the beginning. But the second one SHOULD WORK...right?

So what is going on?

Any ideas would be very much appreciated.

Thanks.
Jonathan

[DeadlySin3]

First off, I would do something to this effect. In a file that is included with every page, so it's "global" to the script as a whole, I would create a variable with a name similiar to this:

<?php

$includeDir = "C:/offlineDir/domain/inc"; # Absolute path to.



# Windows versions of PHP prior to PHP 4.3.0 
# do not support accessing remote files via this function, 
# even if allow_url_fopen is enabled.

# Not good for portability reasons.

# Can easily be changed when moving servers. for instance from Windows to Linux
# $includeDir = "/home/user/inc";

# General FYI

# When I run a script with phpinfo(); My 
# _SERVER["DOCUMENT_ROOT"] = C:/apache2/Apache2/htdocs
# Run phpinfo(); on your dev and live machines. You'll see that including
# with this var still points to an absolute path. Not URL like you're trying.

?>

Then, when you include a common header/sidebar/footer,

<?php
require_once("$includeDir/header.php");
// etc
?>

As for the session problem, that's odd. Maybe it's not able to read the session variable value because you're including from a URL? I don't know.. It's late and i'm out of it though so yeah. I wish I could be of more help there.

Hope this helps out.

[yahyac]

Thanks for your help. Your suggestion is simply another way of providing absolute paths.

As mentioned in my post, that is essentially what I'm doing already. The server is being given an absolute path for the included file, YET it is somehow not carrying over the session variables.

[MarkR]

<?php include 'http://' . $domain . '/includes/header.php'; ?>

Do not include files by URL. Ever. At all.

It does not do what you think it does and it's always a bug. Don't do it. Don't even think about it (Hint: PHP 5.2.0+ disallows this by default even if fopen_url is enabled)

You could consider using dirname(FILE) to determine the directory of the current file and then putting that in the include_path in some setup header-file.

Or just use relative includes everywhere.

Personally I just include one file (setup.php) which I include using relative paths, then it sets the include path to include my "include" directory and includes everything else relatively by this path.

Mark

[yahyac]

Hey Mark,

Thanks for your post. Okay, so no absolute URL includes. Done.

Please know, that the reason this whole thing started was because I wanted to use portable code and did not want to have to think about what level in the directory i was. That's where the $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] idea came from.

MarkR wrote:

You could consider using dirname(FILE) to determine the directory of the current file and then putting that in the include_path in some setup header-file.

Personally I just include one file (setup.php) which I include using relative paths, then it sets the include path to include my "include" directory and includes everything else relatively by this path.

Could you please, if you have the time, give an example as to what you mean here.

Specifically, I want to know how to implement the method you currently use, as it should be easy for me to do. As mentioned, I already have a "setup.php" file that is included using relative paths. I can easily add some variable to this file. But what do I do with it and how, specifically, do I use this variable in calling the include?

Thanks.
Jonathan

[bpat1434]

global.php

<?php

// Get the current directory I'm in: Example for this: /www/includes/
$thisdir = dirname(__FILE__);
$rootdir = substr($thisdir, 0, -9); // make it just '/www/'

// Now, set the include path(s):
ini_set('include_path', $rootdir.'includes'.PATH_SEPARATOR.ini_get('include_path'));

Now when including, drop your folders if it's like ../includes/somefile.php because if you just do include(somefile.php) it will search in /www/includes for the file. Removes all real necessary use of absolute or relative paths 😉

[yahyac]

What is the purpose of the command: substr($thisdir, 0, -9) ?

Ah, i think i get this. Is the entire purpose of the two variables, $thisdir and $rootdir, to simply evaluate the root directory?

And that ini_set command...is it adding something to the php.ini file?

Sorry for the ignorant questions.

[yahyac]

Okay, well, perhaps I'm not getting you.

Mind you, the following thoughts are MOST LIKELY a result of my lack of understanding, but it seems like the code you gave is specific to a particular directory.

Sure, it works and calculates the "root" correctly IF the directory it is in is 9 letters (including the slash).

But what happens when that same global.php is included in a directory such as /www/productcategories/?

Won't $rootdir evaluate to /www/productca ?

If so, then what is the point?

Again, I probably misunderstand the code in the first place.

Jonathan

[yahyac]

MarkR wrote:

Personally I just include one file (setup.php) which I include using relative paths, then it sets the include path to include my "include" directory and includes everything else relatively by this path.

Can someone please explain what specifically Mark meant when by the above quote.

Specifically, how do you implement that?

Thanks.
Jonathan

[NogDog]

I would suggest adding a .htaccess file to your base personal web directory with the path to your include directory, then put your includes in that directory:

.htaccess

php_value include_path ".:/home/username/public_html/include"

Then all you will need to do is include the filename (with no directory specified), and PHP will first look in the current directory, then in the specified include directory for a file with that name.

[yahyac]

ultimately, i simply added one line to the included file that is already included on every page:

ini_set("include_path", ini_get("include_path").':/pathToMyPublicHtmlFolder/public_html/includes');

Then i just include the files by:
include 'header.php';

I just wish there was a better way of doing this in order to make perfectly portable code.

[bpat1434]

But what happens when that same global.php is included in a directory such as /www/productcategories/?

Won't $rootdir evaluate to /www/productca ?

Then you change the 9 to however long the string is. The point of it is that YOU KNOW where your global.php file is. So from that you can extrapolate exactly where your server-document root is for your website. Using that knowledge, you set the include_dir directive.

You don't actually modify php.ini. What you're doing is modifying the run-time value of the include_dir directive. Nothing is permanent.

You implement it the way I put it up there, or a version there-of.