Path handling for sites with multiple directories

La_Parka

Initially, my site only called PHP scripts in the webroot, but I'm now creating a subdirectory for admin scripts.

My site's functions are all contained in a massive library.php script, and ideally, I'd like both directories to reference this. While this shouldn't be a problem with the filesystem calls (e.g. require('/usr/www/config.php')), I can see it being a problem with <a href> and <img src> tags.

Should I create a variable that hardcodes my domain into the URLs, or is there a better way to handle it?

La_Parka

My directories are currently called as follows:

$imagedir = "./images";

echo "<img src=\"$imagedir/delete.gif\">";

How would I adapt this to a site using multiple directories? Does this make the most sense?:

$imagedir = "http://www.mysite.com/images";

bpat1434

Take a look at how phpBB or SMF handle this issue. A typical way is to specify a "config" file which holds the paths you need.

SMF for example uses:

$boardurl = 'http://127.0.0.1/smf'; #URL to your forum
$boarddir = dirname(__FILE__);  #absolute path to folder
$sourcedir = dirname(__FILE__) . '/Sources'; #path to sources folder

Now, they have a unique way to do administration in that they call index.php?action=admin rather than using /admin/index.php. I personally prefer the first method as paths are not needed anymore.

However, if you really want to work around this, you might want to read over at [url=http://********instance.com]getInstance[/url] Matt Zandstra's article "Death to the Dot" which talks about two ways to remove "relative" paths from include() statements.

NogDog

Also, remember that in HTML href and src attributes, starting with a "/" indicates the web root directory, so regardless of where the page in question is in the directory tree, src='/images/picture.jpg' will always refer to the "images" directory directly beneath the web root directory.

La_Parka

bpat1434 wrote:
Take a look at how phpBB or SMF handle this issue. A typical way is to specify a "config" file which holds the paths you need.

SMF for example uses:
$boardurl = 'http://127.0.0.1/smf'; #URL to your forum
$boarddir = dirname(__FILE__);  #absolute path to folder
$sourcedir = dirname(__FILE__) . '/Sources'; #path to sources folder
Now, they have a unique way to do administration in that they call index.php?action=admin rather than using /admin/index.php. I personally prefer the first method as paths are not needed anymore.

However, if you really want to work around this, you might want to read over at [url=http://********instance.com]getInstance[/url] Matt Zandstra's article "Death to the Dot" which talks about two ways to remove "relative" paths from include() statements.

So is the $boardurl example the way to go?

I'm not so much worried about includes files moving, as Mr. Zandstra's article stresses, but rather multiple directories being able to display relative URLs and images with the same code.

bpat1434

Well, NogDog also noted a solution that could work. But for sake of clarity, I'd use the $boardurl solution.