Organizing PHP scripts in folders

[Shadowing]

so is it impossible if I have a users folder and a messaging folder located in the same folder.

 

To have a script in the users folder reading from the messaging folder

 

from a script in the messaging folder i thought i could just do this to read the users folder but apparently not

 

<? require("users/menu.php"); ?>

[xyph]

Use either absolute paths

 

/root/to/folder/users/menu.php

 

Or relative

 

../users/menu.php

[requinix]

For absolute paths you can use a couple things to avoid hardcoding the "/root/to/folder" part.

$_SERVER["DOCUMENT_ROOT"] . "/users/menu.php"

dirname(__FILE__) . "/../users/menu.php" // looks relative but is actually absolute
__DIR__ . "/../users/menu.php" // same for PHP 5.3+

There's a third and maybe fourth I'm forgetting.

 

I tend to avoid strictly relative paths because they're relative to the current working directory, and that's not always the same directory as the executing script. If you aren't aware of when it does(n't) change then the File Not Found errors can drive you crazy.

[Shadowing]

thanks guys, been wondering that for ever

i like being organized.

 

 

[Winstons]

Last two xyph's examples is priority, because $_SERVER["DOCUMENT_ROOT"] depends from php.ini or httpd.conf settings.

[Shadowing]

i tried the relative way it didnt work how far back on the dir do i have to go

 

require "/users/menu.php";

 

 

this is where my folder is located

 

C:\Software\XAMPP\xampp\htdocs\gate\Users

[Winstons]

If your folder located on higher level you must write

 

require "../users/menu.php";

Or yet higher

require "../../users/menu.php";

[Shadowing]

 

C:\Software\XAMPP\xampp\htdocs\gate\messages\inbox.php

 

inbox file is trying to read menu.php

 

 

 

C:\Software\XAMPP\xampp\htdocs\gate\Users\menu.php