How can we include_once a file in PhP from various folder?

Question

Say we have a folder domainname.com/somelibrary/library.php

Located in domainname.com/helloworld/someplace/someplace/somephp.php

I want to include that /somelibrary/library.php

A way to do so is to find the relative path. I can do

include_once ('../../../somelibrary/library.php');

But then the include_once statement must change all the time depending on where my file is.

I can try include_once ('/somelibrary/library.php');

It doesn't seem to work.

Warning: include_once(/blablabla/hello.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home1/romancegua/public_html/russia/test.php on line 2

I am very sure /blablabla/hello.php exist.

It's located at /home1/romancegua/public_html/blablabla/hello.php

So what's my solution?

I suggest you get a look at how Composer and its autoloading works, it allows you to avoid this kind of relative path fiddling. — SolarBear
– SolarBear, Commented Dec 29, 2016 at 14:18

j08691 · Accepted Answer · 2016-12-29 15:31:36Z

2

You have to use the absolute path of "somelibrary/library.php"

include_once('/home1/romancegua/somelibrary/library.php');

If you not sure how to get you can put an

echo __FILE__; die();

into library.php and call it. then it will show you the current file path.

edited Dec 29, 2016 at 15:31

j08691

208k33 gold badges269 silver badges281 bronze badges

answered Dec 29, 2016 at 14:23

Andi S.

3391 silver badge12 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

2 Comments

user4951 Over a year ago

hmmm is there a way to figure out the absolute path of the / directory in the domain? It'll be pretty useful

Andi S. Over a year ago

if you do not have ssh-access you can do also with some new php file. Make new test.php file and put <?php echo FILE; die(); ?> inside and call it with your browser

akabaka · Accepted Answer · 2016-12-29 14:24:10Z

1

One way is to define paths constants, one with the path of your site

define('SITE', '/home1/romancegua/public_html/');

and the one with your library folder

define('LIBRARY', SITE . 'somelibrary/');

here I've made two for reusability.
an then you can call your library with:

include_once(LIBRARY . 'library.php');

answered Dec 29, 2016 at 14:24

akabaka

1151 silver badge9 bronze badges

Comments

meda · Accepted Answer · 2016-12-29 14:28:24Z

1

Like the guys said in the comments, you should be using autoloading:

PHP has this feature natively:

spl_autoload_register(function ($class_name) {
    include $class_name . EXTENSION;
});

$obj  = new MyClass1();
$obj2 = new MyClass2(); 

$obj->sayHello();

Even easier, you can use namespaces and the autoloading feature offered by composer, using psr-4.

Example:

Add the following to your composer.json:

"autoload":{
  "psr-4" : {
    "App\\": "src/"
  }
}

App would be name of your project, and src is the folder for your classes.

Then use namespace

namespace App\folder;

http://php.net/manual/en/function.spl-autoload-register.php

https://getcomposer.org/doc/01-basic-usage.md#autoloading

edited Dec 29, 2016 at 14:28

answered Dec 29, 2016 at 14:23

meda

45.5k14 gold badges96 silver badges123 bronze badges

3 Comments

user4951 Over a year ago

is this what wordpress use?

meda Over a year ago

yes, as you can see it here github.com/WordPress/WordPress/…

meda Over a year ago

include is fine for small scripts, but then its not maintainable for projects

user4951 · Accepted Answer · 2016-12-29 15:29:22Z

0

include_once ( $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']..'/blablabla/hello.php');

That does the trick for me.

answered Dec 29, 2016 at 15:29

user4951

33.3k55 gold badges182 silver badges289 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

How can we include_once a file in PhP from various folder?

4 Answers 4

2 Comments

Comments

3 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

4 Answers 4

2 Comments

Comments

3 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related