I'm having a spot of bother with php includes. I have the following file structure
htdocs
php_includes
within the db_conx.php file i've creates a variable $number = 10; for testing.
The db_conx file is included in the check_user_status.php file with the following code:
include_once("db_conx.php");
and that is working fine - i.e. i can echo $number and get 10.
However, I'm including the check_user_status.php file at the top of login.php with this code:
include_once("php_includes/db_conx.php");
and on this page I'm unable to echo out $number on this page (check_user_status.php).
I'm going to need this script included in many pages (since it checks whether the user is logged in or not). Am I doing something strange with the paths?
For relative paths you need to do this.
include_once("../php_includes/db_conx.php");
To break this down.
Your Current working directory is initially going to be htdocs/ if your hit that file in your browser.
the .. back you up one directory level (so the directory that contains both htdocs and php_includes)
then you want to follow down php_includes to get to db_conx.php.
This will become a problem when you do a file in a subdirectory. Assuming you and a page2.php to a htdocs/subpages/
Now if we follow those same steps we are not going to arrive at the same location.
A better approach is to get the path relative to an absolute location. I like using the document root (htdocs in your case), so:
include($_SERVER["DOCUMENT_ROOT"]."/../php_includes/db_conx.php");
will refer to the same place on the file system regardless of where it is used.