Directories and includes

[guttyguppy]

Hi, I'm sure this is a common question but I can't seem to find anything relevant. If I have my header and footer includes in an includes directory, and all my web pages are using them, and all my web pages are inside various directories and sub directories, how can I use one code snippet to access the includes? I've always just done

 

include "http://www.domainname.com/includes/header.php"

 

but I get the feeling there is something better than that, plus if I move my code to different servers I have to change that on every page.

 

Thanks for any advice.

[trq]

include $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . '/includes/header.php';

[guttyguppy]

Thanks, but that returns /var/www on my server, but my site is in /home/username/public_html/

 

My site is one of these deals:

 

http://www.domainname.com/~username

 

Also, I thought $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] returns a string, so wouldn't the page look for a sibling directory called /var instead of going to the root?