php include methods

[greeneel]

Hello folks,
Newbie seeking some advice, I'm working on a website and wanted to use php includes in the pages. I tried this method first:

<?php include "/path1/path2/file.php"; ?>

Proceeded to load the web page online and nothing happened. I did alittle research and found out that i could use the following method.

<?php include $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . "/path1/path2/file.php"; ?>

This one worked but now i am noticing that some of the images on the page have at least 2px cell padding spaces between them that wasn't there before any ideas as its quite weird. Also, I wanted to know what are the differences between using these two methods and what could of happened why method one didn't work but method two did.

[NogDog]

When you start a path with a "/", that means relative to the root directory of that file system, (not the document root directory of your web site).

The image problem is likely due to the fact that <img> elements are, by default, in-line elements; so any newlines or spaces around them will be treated as a word space. You can avoid this behavior by making them block elements, either within the tag as:

<img src="pic.gif" style="display:block">

Or you can set that display behavior in your CSS style sheet/block if using one.

[greeneel]

Thanks Mon your advice worked...