Posted by Confused but working on it on 09/25/07 17:04

On 2007-09-25 03:49:42 -0700, Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> said:

>> as I have added pages I have made folders to keep things organized. My
>> goal is to call my header or footer file from any level folder from an
>> includes folder.
>> <?php include("includes/header.php"); ?> being called from collies in
>> mysite/pets/dogs or whatever.
>>
>
> Yes, this happens when you use relative paths.
>
>> My solution is to make the link the full path with http://mysite.com
>> and so on so regardless of where the header is called from the link is
>> good. I always thought that relative paths are used within a site and
>> full paths to link outside. My solution will work but I think there is
>> a better way.
>>
>
> A terrible way to do it. It makes another request to the server,
> increasing network traffic and server load. You won't be able to
> include anything other than HTML, because any PHP code will be parsed
> before you get the page. And you won't be able to hide it in a private
> directory, inaccessible other than through your other pages.
>
>> So should I have my include files at the same level as my index file?
>> or in a folder?
>> Use full path?
>> And should these include files use a .inc extension instead of php?
>>
>> Sorry this is a bit long for such a simple topic but I have to get
>> organized. :)
>>
>> thx..ron
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
> Use absolute paths. $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] gives you the absolute
> path to your website's root directory.

Thanks Jerry,

I changed the links to ful paths temporarily. Heavier sever load is
better than bad links.

I wrote an echo statement for the above line and found out my site
isn't where I thought it was on my iMac. So I stuck it in my header
file and did an upload to my real site and it gave me:
/home/mysite/public_html Ths is correct and to my surprise worked when
i wrote it into my include. This is a shared host and I'm sure a common
setup so any security concerns here?
<?php include($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']."/header.php"); ?> Also worked
which is what I think I'm really after.

Before i do a mass find and replace anything else I should know?

Thanks so much for the help.

Ron

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