PHP include best practices question

Question

I have been learning syntax for PHP and practicing it. I come from a .NET background so masterpages always made things pretty easy for me when it came to headers and footer

Answer 1

I include my views from my controllers. I also define file locations to make maintenance easier.

config.php

define('DIR_BASE',      dirname( dirname( __FILE__ ) ) . '/');
define('DIR_SYSTEM',    DIR_BASE . 'system/');
define('DIR_VIEWS',     DIR_SYSTEM . 'views/');
define('DIR_CTLS',      DIR_SYSTEM . 'ctls/');
define('DIR_MDLS',      DIR_SYSTEM . 'mdls/');
define('VIEW_HEADER',   DIR_VIEWS . 'header.php');
define('VIEW_NAVIGATION',   DIR_VIEWS . 'navigation.php');
define('VIEW_FOOTER',   DIR_VIEWS . 'footer.php');

Now i have all the info i need just by including config.php.

controller.php

require( '../config.php' );
include( DIR_MDLS . 'model.php' );

$model = new model();
if ( $model->getStuff() ) {
    $page_to_load = DIR_VIEWS . 'page.php';
}
else {
    $page_to_load = DIR_VIEWS . 'otherpage.php';
}

include( VIEW_HEADER );
include( VIEW_NAVIGATION );
include( DIR_VIEWS . $page_to_load );
include( VIEW_FOOTER );