Access file in home directory?

[barkster]

I'm trying to access some files under the home directory, the script accessing the file is in the following directory

/home/user/public_html/beta/java/test.php

 

I would think I could access the files in the home directory this way but cannot

 

if(file_exists("/home/user/protected/test.txt")) echo "yes";

 

but I can only access it this way?  What am I doing wrong?  Is it trying to reference off of /public_html folder instead?  How do I do it from /home dir?  Thanks

 

if(file_exists("../../../protected/test.txt")) echo "Yipee";

[Lodius2000]

its because file paths are relative to the file you are currently accessing

 

if(file_exists("/home/user/protected/test.txt"))

is looking for the file

/home/user/public_html/beta/java/home/user/protected/test.txt

 

the ../ backs you up a folder

 

does that make sense?

[haku]

You can't reference folders above public_html using root-level relative paths, because they reference everything from public_html. So you will need to use

 

../../../protected/test.txt

[Lodius2000]

thats a much better answer haku, thanks

[PFMaBiSmAd]

When you try if(file_exists("/home/user/protected/test.txt")) echo "yes"; with php error_reporting set to E_ALL and display_errors set to ON, what error do you get?  That would indicate why it is not working. This could be a permissions, open_basedir, or an incorrect path problem.

[barkster]

Thanks, I'll stick with what I have, figured that is what was happening but I just though putting the / in from indicated from "root" but the real root is the "public_html" folder and not the home dir.  PFMaBiSmAd, I was just getting access denied cause the folder didn't exist.  Thanks for the clarification!