Include or require, when does it execute?

[mikie46]

Say i have a php script

<?php

code

code

code

?>

If i include or require the following code;

code

code

code

|---------------- HERE
   if(file_exists(myfile)){
      require_once $myfile;
    }
   else
   {
 // dont require anything;
   }

?>

Does it get execute only at that point, after all of the above code has execute?

Also i assume i can only include php? Can one include bash shell?

Thanks

[halojoy]

difference
between include and require,
is that require will stop execution, if the required file cant be found or loaded

include will run the script, even if not found

include_once and require_once will only do it one time
if later in script, maybe in some included file,
same file is is called for an include, it will not include it a second time

you can read more here
[man]include[/man], [man]require[/man], [man]include_once[/man], [man]require_once[/man]

🙂

[halojoy]

it will be execute exactly where it is
after you code, code has been executed

you can include other files, for example html or text
but they will be displayed as html and text, unless there is php tags in them

included file can have any extension or no extension at all
include( 'mypage' );
include( 'anypage.txt' );
will be executed as a php file, if there is a <?php tag inside

When a file is included, parsing drops out of PHP mode and into HTML mode at the beginning of the target file, and resumes again at the end. For this reason, any code inside the target file which should be executed as PHP code must be enclosed within valid PHP start and end tags.

🙂

[NogDog]

Just to expand on what the others have said, you can include a bash shell script if you want, but it will not be executed as a shell script. It will be read into the PHP script at that point and be processed exactly as if you had typed its text into your PHP script as plain text (not within <?php...?> tags). For example:

shellscript.sh:

#!/user/bin/sh
ls -a

mypage.php:

<pre>
<?php
include 'shellscript.sh';
?>
</pre>

Resulting output of running mypage.php

#!/user/bin/sh
ls -a

If you actually want to execute an external script from within a PHP file, you would need to use one of the [man]exec[/man] functions.