[RESOLVED] a (probably foolish) question about default include path

steamPunk

I have a line at the top of all my pages to include a file that points to all the other includes. As this included file (and the others) is outside the "www" directory it seems I can only use an absolute server path to point to it like this :

require("/homez.380/user/includes/inc_includes.php");

however, this obviously means that if I develop on one server and then move it to another server I have to change all the paths.

There must be a way of setting a default thingy so that if I do

require("inc_includes.php");

it would automatically point to

"/homez.380/user/includes/"

bearing in mind that I'm on shared hosting and can't touch php.ini, how could I change the default include path ?? is it a thing in .htaccess ?

thanks

bradgrafelman

steamPunk wrote:
As this included file (and the others) is outside the "www" directory it seems I can only use an absolute server path

The fact that it's outside the web root has no bearing on whether or not you can use relative paths or not.

steamPunk wrote:
how could I change the default include path ?? is it a thing in .htaccess ?

If PHP is installed as an ISAPI module in Apache, then yes, you can probably change the value in a .htaccess file. However, there is no guarantee that this method is available/enabled either. For example, many hosts use the CGI executable method and instead allow users to place a custom php.ini file in a specific location inside their home directory.

In other words, it would probably be easier to simply use relative paths instead.

steamPunk

thanks for your reply

bradgrafelman;10965228 wrote:
The fact that it's outside the web root has no bearing on whether or not you can use relative paths or not.

oh dear, how embarrassing - it was me being foolish after all, jumping to conclusions, when in fact I just hadn't sent it back up enough levels because I'd used

require("../includes/includes.php");

instead of

require("../../includes/includes.php");

sorry :o