Create link out of a global and set a variable

[LeonLatex]

I have put the PDO database connection one level above (outside) the WWW directory on the server to protect it from unwanted visitors who get hold of the user data of the database server.
Today I use this in other places than where it says now, but it is only as an example:
include __DIR__ . '/../includes/db.php';

but then I thought of the super global $server , but I can't get it to work. I have set it up like this:
include($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . "../includes/db.php");

What am I doing wrong? Or won't it work with the super global example?

And how do I create a variable out of the super global string so I only use $linkpath in front of the path to the file I want to link to?

[requinix]

Print out the value of the DOCUMENT_ROOT and see what happens when you try to add "../includes/db.php" to it.

[Strider64]

if you file is outside the root directory you should use

include(__DIR__ . "/../includes/db.php");

$_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] returns the root directory defined by the server configuration file

[LeonLatex]

14 hours ago, Strider64 said:

if your file is outside the root directory you should use

include(__DIR__ . "/../includes/db.php");

$_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] returns the root directory defined by the server configuration file.

Thanks for the answer to both of you. I tried as Requinix said to print out the path and found out the difference between those two.