Includes - help, advice and whatnot

New Member Joined: Jan 18, 2005 Posts: 4

Hi,

I am trying to teach myself PHP using a book and alot of information both good and rather worthless from the Internet. I think I'm doing pretty good so far and am attempting to write an app of sorts, a very basic cms to force me to wrap my brain around PHP better.

I havn't gotten very far because I have run into a problem with includes. The book I'm using says includes are great for reusing code (variables and classes and functions) and all but doesn't give any pratical help when it comes to using them within mulitple files in different directories and subdirectories. I have looked over the include function on php.net and it appears to be a plague requiring way too much thought for a beginner:)

Now I have found a few possible solutions to correct the paths and I have listed them below but I really don't wan't to go this route. How does phpBB drop the variable phpbb_root_path/../file.php into any page within the program? Other CMS's like mambo have all the variables from the config file available throughout the cms where needed. I'm fairly sure it has something to do with making them global but as to how I'm lost. Regardless of the program or CMS I like this method it's clean and seems way more practicle than fooling with paths all the time, not to mention should a file need to be moved later on.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be great.

I havn't tried these yet but here are the methods I've found so far...

Code:







$pathFix = dirname(__FILE__);


include("$pathFix/../somedir3/C.php"); //Works all the time...








--------------------------








$path = getcwd();





-------------------------------





this one maybe





include(realpath(dirname(__FILE__)."/../config/config.php"));








-----------------------





or this





include $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']."/inc/header.php";

registered · Site Admin Joined: Jun 04, 2004 Posts: 6437

If you use the approach you listed, you won't need a global variable since the dirname(__FILE__) function tells you the path of the current file, and you can load included file relative to that (usually in subdirectories).

How you load includes can be affected by several factors, but mainly where the includes are stored and, to some extent, what you're including. If it's a class or a library of functions, you probably want to include_once or require_once for performance, although it may be a minor improvement depending on the size and frequency of loading the file.

If your includes are all stored in the same place (e.g. the /includes directory, as it is in PHP-Nuke), you can either use a constant variable or explicitly define it (i.e. hardcode). Using a variable takes a little extra memory (probably not significant) and allows you to find paths relative to that if necessary. One issue with storing files in the same location is that it can be more difficult to manage upgrades to specific utility classes or functions. For example, if you use overLIB, you might put the overlib.js in the includes directory, along with other supporting javascript files. But it might be easier to manage upgrades if you put it in the includes/overlib directory.

Either way, it's unlikely to have a significant impact on your effort unless you're building some sort of artificial intelligence application or other very complex application with hundreds of included files. Is something you're trying not working?

Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 6:43 am

If you use the approach you listed, you won't need a global variable since the dirname(__FILE__) function tells you the path of the current file, and you can load included file relative to that (usually in subdirectories).

How you load includes can be affected by several factors, but mainly where the includes are stored and, to some extent, what you're including. If it's a class or a library of functions, you probably want to include_once or require_once for performance, although it may be a minor improvement depending on the size and frequency of loading the file.

If your includes are all stored in the same place (e.g. the /includes directory, as it is in PHP-Nuke), you can either use a constant variable or explicitly define it (i.e. hardcode). Using a variable takes a little extra memory (probably not significant) and allows you to find paths relative to that if necessary. One issue with storing files in the same location is that it can be more difficult to manage upgrades to specific utility classes or functions. For example, if you use overLIB, you might put the overlib.js in the includes directory, along with other supporting javascript files. But it might be easier to manage upgrades if you put it in the includes/overlib directory.

Either way, it's unlikely to have a significant impact on your effort unless you're building some sort of artificial intelligence application or other very complex application with hundreds of included files. Is something you're trying not working?

Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 2:07 pm

Hi kguske,
Thanks for the Re:

Quote:

If you use the approach you listed, you won't need a global variable since the dirname(__FILE__) function tells you the path of the current file, and you can load included file relative to that (usually in subdirectories).

- so this is good and it will work, but I don't think this is what I'm looking for in the long run.

Quote:

How you load includes can be affected by several factors, but mainly where the includes are stored and, to some extent, what you're including. If it's a class or a library of functions, you probably want to include_once or require_once for performance, although it may be a minor improvement depending on the size and frequency of loading the file.

If your includes are all stored in the same place (e.g. the /includes directory, as it is in PHP-Nuke), you can either use a constant variable or explicitly define it (i.e. hardcode). Using a variable takes a little extra memory (probably not significant) and allows you to find paths relative to that if necessary.

- I'm going for the ../includes directory approach.

- I'd like to know more about constant variables.. can you give a simple example?

- With hardcoding are you meaning full paths (e.g. /var/www/html/app/includes/file.php)?
Or?

Quote:

One issue with storing files in the same location is that it can be more difficult to manage upgrades to specific utility classes or functions. For example, if you use overLIB, you might put the overlib.js in the includes directory, along with other supporting javascript files. But it might be easier to manage upgrades if you put it in the includes/overlib directory.

- So you're suggesting that I should specialize & compartmentalize?
(e.g. ../includes/DB/file.php or ../includes/whatever/php)

Quote:

Either way, it's unlikely to have a significant impact on your effort unless you're building some sort of artificial intelligence application or other very complex application with hundreds of included files. Is something you're trying not working?

- No AI, (the movie should be reason enough not to create AI)

- I'm running into problems here...

/root/config.php - contains DBusername, DBpassword, script_path, etc...

/root/includes/database.php - contains my database functions ***INCLUDES ../../config.php***

Trying to specialize and compartmentalize,
/root/admin/modules/login/login.php - Problem calling ../../../includes/db.php which includes config.php. PHP uses the current file path and is messing up other includes in other files in other subdirectories.

Ideally I would like to just call a function or variable whenever and have it work. Maybe with the constant variables like you mentioned but I'm just getting more confused the longer I think about this I need to take a break and eat something.

Thanks

Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 10:44 pm

kguske you're absolutly right...

I'm just wasting time trying to do to much at once, I'm going to use the most basic effective method availabe as long as it works right, the dirname(__FILE__) function. And for the record kguske said just about everything that this other guy mentions in his article section about configuration and directory structure. That's what I was getting at, I just didn't know exactly how to pose the question in terms of structure, but I get it now! I can say I learned something new today Groovy

Now that I've had a chance to clear my mind from a case of TMI, eaten and gone to town and back I have continued my search for the answer to my problem. Found it in very simple terms that I could understand in an article here -
http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/perdue20030310.php3?aid=484

I'm not endorsing or affiliated with that site period, might help others though so I added it.

I'm going to go make it work now wish me luck

Cheers

Thanks again