strange include behaviour

thanks for reply. it errors with: Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_ECHO in line 552 which is

<div class="collapsibleContent"> <?php (file_exists("proftest.php")) ? include("proftest.php") : echo "$nbsp;"; ?>
 </div>

It didn't like the tertiary operator.  Ok, multiple line solution:

<?php
if( file_exists("proftest.php") )
{
  include ("proftest.php");
}
else
{
  echo "$nbsp;";
}
?>

                                              

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Your problem is likely to be in the file that you are including. Can you post it here or scan through it and see if there are divs and formatting that you are not wanting to show on your page.

If it still throws an error, you can also try this:

if ((include "proftest.php") != 'OK') {
    echo " ";
}

                                              

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althought file exists, it dosen't work. if i put a file that dosen't exist, it runs but obviously with error because of missing file. go figure?

Do you just want to get rid of the warning?  If so, see this link.  It talks about suppressing the warning error.

http://us2.php.net/manual/en/function.include.php#90527

no. i want to know why this i happening because i need to include a file for the operation of the site. thanks

it appears that i cannot use any include within this div statement. i have done a fresh page and if i use any include it just knocks the div's out. id there a situation where you cannot use an include and this could happen? thanks

>>althought file exists, it dosen't work.
You said earlier "if i include a file that does exist <?php "iexist.php";?> then it totally throws all page formatiing off"
So your "problem" is when there is actually content to include. From what you are describing, the formatting is off because the content of the file that does Exist may be invalid markup and is therefore affecting your design. Maybe there are unclosed tags somewhere. Maybe you have tags/elements that do not confirm to your css rules (if you are using css somewhere)

>> if i put a file that dosen't exist, it runs but obviously with error because of missing file. go figure?
That is the correct behaviour. When you use include("file.php") OR include_once("file.php") you get a warning. However, if you use require("file.php") or require_once("file.php") the execution of the script will abort. There's no need to do "if( file_exists...)". The require once already does that.

Try using this file for the one that exists and see if it works OK.  If not, hielo's almost certainly right about errant markup in the included file.  Since this has no markup, it won't be able to break the HTML page.

<?php echo "Hello World"; ?>

                                              

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hello peter_coop, I believe that an include is evaluated much differently than a regular output like echo, , I would think that if you want to use this include to have output as HTML, you might NOT use things like echo. I think to have HTML output for when you call include you MUST have a  return  statement
<?php
$foo = 'Good ';
$var = 'PHP';

return $foo.$var;
?>

thank you hielo. after thoroughly checking include file there was an error. all ok now. thanks

thanks once again