Site root?

[tmallen]

I'm a freelance web designer and I've begun to use PHP extensively for my clients' websites. A problem I run into is the consistent use of "/" for the site root. My server thinks that that refers to public_html/, meaning I can't test a site with "/" used to recognize the site root if I'm, say, one directory deep. How can I have a specific website recognize its own base folder as the site root? I imagine that in PHP, without touching Apache config files, there's a way to set a new site root, I just don't know how. :(

[trq]

Take a look at $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].

[tmallen]

Thanks. I took a look. Didn't help though...where should I set this variable? I couldn't even find an example, just code-reference style entries.

[trq]

It is set by your server and already points to the doc root.

[tmallen]

Yes, it does. But imagine:

(1) I have my portfolio website. This is the only one where a URL like "/images/logo.png" would work, because I store this site in the public_html folder, which my server has set as the root.

 

(2) I have many websites for clients. When I deploy on their server, "/images/logo.png" will work fine for their site, but right now I have it located on my server at "/clientA/images/logo.png". However, for the Header include, I'd like to have <img src="/images/logo.png" />. If I do that, it will point to my website's logo, and not theirs.

 

(3) I'd like their site root to be located not at public_html/, but at public_html/clientA/ so that I can easily deploy/migrate.

[trq]

A site within a site is just that. They share the same document root because they are actually the same site.

 

Ive always used a seperate vhost when developing for clients.

 

One thing you could probably do would be to create your own $root var. eg;

 

$root = $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . '/clientA';

 

However then you'll need to include this variable anywhere you need to use it. Also, it will not effect pure html such as <img src='/images/logo.png'>. You would need to use <img src='<?php echo $root ; ?>/images/logo.png'>

[tmallen]

Which is really no better than adding "/clientA" to every absolute root URL and using a site-wide Replace to wipe it out later. I wish there were another way, and it defies reason that PHP doesn't provide a way to set a non-global site root for a specific script or set of scripts.

[trq]

It has little to do with php and more to do with your server. If you want to have a different site root for each client, create a seperate vhost for it.

[tmallen]

It has everything to do with PHP. The "/" indicating the site root is completely up to PHP. PHP could define "/" to mean anything it wants, and a programmer should be able to control where "/" points...that's the reason for my skepticism.

[trq]

The "/" indicating the site root is completely up to PHP.

 

Are you talking about this?

 

<img src="/images/logo.png" />

 

/ is not the document root defined by php, that is your server (and that code is not php). If you use php to attempt to include a file like so...

 

include '/foo/bar/';

 

php will search for bar in the root of your filesystem, not your web doc root.

[corbin]

Which is really no better than adding "/clientA" to every absolute root URL and using a site-wide Replace to wipe it out later. I wish there were another way, and it defies reason that PHP doesn't provide a way to set a non-global site root for a specific script or set of scripts.

 

A non global site root?  By that do you mean set a variable to something like '/clientA/' because if that's what you mean, that's what thorpe suggested....

 

I get a little crazy with the use of vhosts.... I have around 15 (most of them are just entries in my hosts file ;p).

[SammyGunnz]

Relative paths....as long as the file structure is the same (A logo will always be in folder 'images/logo.gif'), will work regardless of where the test/client folder is. I don't see what all the confusion is about. Just use relative paths and you won't have any problems.