PHP class not found but it's included

Question

I'm including a PHP class with

require_once($ENGINE."/classUser.php");

but when the code is executed i receive this error:

Fatal error: Class 'User' not found in C:\xampp\htdocs\WebName\resources\engine\ajax\signup.php on line 12

I still can't figure out what's the problem. I'm 99% sure it's correct.

The "$ENGINE" is correct, and the class is correct too (Netbeans suggests me class methods and variables).

signup.php:

<?php

/* Created on: 13/12/2011
 * Author: 
 * 
 * Description: User signup procedure.
 */

require_once("../settings.php");
require_once($ENGINE."/classUser.php");

$user = new User();
$user->createUser($_POST["username"], $_POST["email"], $_POST["password"]);


?>

classUser.php:

<?php

/* Created on: 13/12/2011
 * Author: 
 * 
 * Description: This class manages users.
 */

require_once("settings.php");
require_once($LIBRARY."/cassandraphp/cassandra.php");

class User {

    public function createUser($username, $email, $password){
        $cassandra = Cassandra::createInstance($CASSANDRASERVER);
        $cassandra->set(
                "user.".$username,
                array(
                    'ID' => uniqid(),
                    'Username' => $username,
                    'Email' => $email,
                    'Password' => $password
                )
        );
    } 
}

?>

Dharman · Accepted Answer · 2022-06-07 15:09:38Z

65

Check to make sure your environment isn't being picky about your opening tags. My configuration requires:

<?php

If I try to use:

<?

Then I get the same error as you.

Short tags can be enabled through the INI setting short_open_tag.

edited Jun 7, 2022 at 15:09

Dharman♦

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answered Jan 9, 2014 at 10:02

jarederaj

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2 Comments

theINtoy Over a year ago

If you dont have access to php.ini, you can add this to .htaccess: php_value short_open_tag 1

betsou Over a year ago

Man you saved my week ! ChatGPT gave me code starting by '<?' and I didn't figured out it could be the problem. Thank you !

random · Accepted Answer · 2017-01-02 16:30:34Z

39

I had this problem and the solution was namespaces. The included file was included in its own namespace. Obvious thing, easy to overlook.

edited Jan 2, 2017 at 16:30

random

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answered Sep 23, 2016 at 10:36

Raiden616

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1 Comment

Bryan Green Dec 10, 2024 at 17:08

It would be better to explain exactly what the issue with namespaces was in your case.

Dejan Marjanović · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-13 14:21:48Z

36

if ( ! class_exists('User')) 
    die('There is no hope!');

answered Dec 13, 2011 at 14:21

Dejan Marjanović

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Comments

olga · Accepted Answer · 2017-04-07 20:37:05Z

14

It may also be, that you by mistake commented out such a line like require_once __DIR__.'/../vendor/autoload.php'; --- your namespaces are not loaded.

Or you forget to add a classmap to the composer, thus classes are not autoloaded and are not available. For example,

"autoload": {
    "psr-4": {
        "": "src/"
    },
    "classmap": [
        "dir/YourClass.php",
    ]
},
"require": {
    "php": ">=5.3.9",
    "symfony/symfony": "2.8.*",

answered Apr 7, 2017 at 20:37

olga

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Comments

Minras · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-13 14:19:06Z

6

First of all check if $ENGINE."/classUser.php" is a valid name of existing file. Try this:

var_dump(file_exists($ENGINE."/classUser.php"));

answered Dec 13, 2011 at 14:19

Minras

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1 Comment

Marc B Over a year ago

Useless... require_once() will kill the script with a fatal error if the file can't be found or read.

Jeff Solomon · Accepted Answer · 2020-10-17 23:41:37Z

My fail might be useful to someone, so I thought I would post as I finally figured out what the issue was. I was autoloading classes like this:

define("PROJECT_PATH", __DIR__);

// Autoload class definitions
function my_autoload($class) {
    if(preg_match('/\A\w+\Z/', $class)) {
        include(PROJECT_PATH . '/classes/' . $class . '.class.php');
    }
}
spl_autoload_register('my_autoload');

In my /classes folder I had 4 classes:

dbobject.class.php
meeting.class.php
session.class.php
user.class.php

When I later created a new class called:

cscmeeting.class.php

I started getting the can't load DbObject class. I simply could not figure out what was wrong. As soon as I deleted cscmeeting.class.php from the directory, it worked again.

I finally realized that it was looping through the directory alphabetically and prior to cscmeeting.class.php the first class that got loaded was cscmeeting.class.php since it started with D. But when I add the new class, which starts with C it would load that first and it extended the DbObject class. So it chocked every time.

I ended up naming my DbObject class to _dbobject.class.php and it always loads that first.

I realize my naming conventions are probably not great and that's why I was having issues. But I'm new to OOP so doing my best.

Russell England · Accepted Answer · 2014-08-06 10:01:28Z

2

The problem went away when I did

sudo service apache2 restart

answered Aug 6, 2014 at 10:01

Russell England

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Comments

CodeToLife · Accepted Answer · 2019-11-19 08:46:44Z

2

you should declare namespace in the ClassUser.php, something like this:

<?php
namespace app; // where 'app' is a folder declared as a root for the project
class ClassUser{
public function test(){
//log something here
}
}
?>

Then you can add the class in your other php files like this:

<?php
use app\ClassUser;
$classUserLcl = new ClassUser();
$classUserLcl->test();
?>

and you are done. Otherwize it will abuse:

You Oh! its a Fatal error : Uncaught Error: Class 'app\ClassUser' not found in ...

answered Nov 19, 2019 at 8:46

CodeToLife

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Comments

Minras · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-13 14:55:08Z

As a more systematic and structured solution you could define folders where your classes are stored and create an autoloader (__autoload()) which will search the class files in defined places:

require_once("../settings.php");
define('DIR_CLASSES', '/path/to/the/classes/folder/'); // this can be inside your settings.php

$user = new User();
$user->createUser($_POST["username"], $_POST["email"], $_POST["password"]);

function __autoload($classname) { 
    if(file_exists(DIR_CLASSES . 'class' . $classname . '.php')) {
        include_once(DIR_CLASSES . 'class' . $classname . '.php'); // looking for the class in the project's classes folder
    } else {
        include_once($classname . '.php'); // looking for the class in include_path
    }
}

Lorenzo Magon · Accepted Answer · 2015-05-21 17:23:07Z

1

It 'happened to me! The problem is that somehow you include a file with the same file name of the class thus invalidating the same class!

Check the path of inclusion and these checks files with the same name!

answered May 21, 2015 at 17:23

Lorenzo Magon

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Comments

Andrew · Accepted Answer · 2015-10-28 03:32:50Z

1

Check your file permissions for the correct linux user for classUser.php

answered Oct 28, 2015 at 3:32

Andrew

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Comments

Cedric Ipkiss · Accepted Answer · 2018-11-14 06:41:21Z

1

Check File Permissions
Check File size.

Sometimes an inaccessible or corrupted file would be the problem, as was in my case

answered Nov 14, 2018 at 6:41

Cedric Ipkiss

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Comments

Dharman · Accepted Answer · 2022-06-07 15:11:39Z

1

When namespace declaration is part of your php class file "this kind of weird errors tends to appear".

Solution: Use namespace with {, your code shows like this:

<?php

namespace path_to\lib {

require_once "folder/php_class_file_where_namespace_declaration_is_part_of_it.php";

**YOUR CODE HERE**

<?php } ?>

edited Jun 7, 2022 at 15:11

Dharman♦

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answered Oct 2, 2016 at 2:00

Enrique Mendoza

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Comments

Andrew · Accepted Answer · 2017-01-20 17:00:25Z

0

Double check your autoloader's requirements & namespaces.

For example, does your autoloader require your namespace to match the folder structure of where the file is located? If so, make sure they match.
Another example, does your autoloader require your filenames to follow a certain pattern/is it case sensitive? If so, make sure the filename follows the correct pattern.
And of course if the class is in a namespace make sure to include it properly with a fully qualified class name (/Path/ClassName) or with a use statement at the top of your file.

edited Jan 20, 2017 at 17:00

answered Jan 17, 2017 at 18:27

Andrew

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Comments

Alf Georg Østebrøt · Accepted Answer · 2018-12-12 09:02:16Z

0

Maybe it is how you use new User(). Set path something like

$user = new \resources\engine\ajax\User();

answered Dec 12, 2018 at 9:02

Alf Georg Østebrøt

411 bronze badge

Comments

teckmk · Accepted Answer · 2020-11-12 12:47:16Z

0

If you've included the file correctly and file exists and still getting error:

Then make sure:
Your included file contains the class and is not defined within any namespace.
If the class is in a namespace then:
instead of new YourClass() you've to do new YourNamespace\YourClass()

answered Nov 12, 2020 at 12:47

teckmk

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Comments

Wael Salah · Accepted Answer · 2021-06-02 09:09:25Z

0

Yes this happen in cases when use a trait or extend a class, you should be aware to instantiate the class after the class declaration for example:

This example will trigger class not found error:

$class = new A();

class A {
   use SomeTrait;
}

To make it to work move the initialization step in the bottom like so:

class A {
   use SomeTrait;
}

$class = new A();

answered Jun 2, 2021 at 9:09

Wael Salah

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Comments

Spinstaz · Accepted Answer · 2021-11-10 16:03:35Z

0

I found I had to use the use keyword, as well as the include statement. Tested it with either missing, and it doesn't work.

namespace foo;
use src\config\object;
include('config/object.php');

answered Nov 10, 2021 at 16:03

Spinstaz

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