Hello,
I am writing an application that several people with different setups will be installing. I am going to have a standard header included on each page with links to the home page and other key pages. Without knowing what the file system is or the directory path from the root, is there any way I can insure the links in the header will return to the proper page?
I can't use a relative path because the header will get called on different pages at different levels within the folder structure of my app and I can't use an exact path because I don't have the folder structure on the user's computer.
I am using php and am hoping there is a function or something that could search for a file in what I want to be the root directory and set the links accordingly. If there is nothing like that, the assistance on how to make something like that would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks in advance for looking and your assistance.
~bano6010
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I put an empty php file in my root called root.php and included it on a page above the header using the absolute path. I then put $root = dirname("root.php"); at the top of my header and created my links based off of that but get nothing. I tried just echoing dirname("root.php") and got no output. I am I doing something wrong here?
No, do not use dirname("root.php")...
in the file named "root.php" use exactly what I type below:
dirname(__FILE__);
__FILE__ is not a placeholder or something meaning to use the file name there, __FILE__ is a special constant in PHP that wil get the path to the file it is called from.
So, you have all your pages, at the top of all these pages you need to use:
require('root.php');
in root php you have:
define('DOC_ROOT', dirname(__FILE__));
now you can make links like <a href="<?php echo DOC_ROOT; ?>/whatever/page.php">
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by: Hube02Posted on 2009-11-04 at 19:23:01ID: 25746508
I think I know what you are looking for, and I can only think of one way to know what the site root might be if it can be anywhere and the links depend on knowing where it is installed.
You need to include a file in what the root of the site would be. I am assuming that php includes with relative paths will work, if not then there is no way at all that I know of to do this.
At anyrate, the top of all of your files would include
require('config.php'); or require('../config.php') or something on these lines.
A file always knows where it is located, even if you don't.
dirname(__FILE__) will give you the path to the folder that the config file is in and then you can set a contant based on this location:
define('DOC_ROOT', dirname(__FILE__));
However, like I said, this would require relative paths in php to work, meaning the file structure of you application would need to be constant within whatever folder or directory the user installs it.