What does the dot-slash do to PHP include calls?

Question

A. What does this do?

require (\"./file.php\");

B. in comparison to this?

require (\"file.php\");

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(

Answer 1

The first version forces the internal mechanism to include files relatively to the... directly executed file. So for example you have

index.php

// directly executed script (php -f index.php or from a browser)
include 'second.php';

second.php

// This is included relatively to index.php
// Actually, it is first searched relatively to include_path, then relatively
// to index.php
include './third.php';

third.php

// This is included relatively to second.php ONLY. It does not search
// include_path
return "foo";