How do you get PHP, Symlinks and __FILE__ to work together nicely?

Question

On localhost. I have the following directory structure:

/share/www/trunk/wp-content/plugins/otherfolders

/share/www/portfolio/wp-content/s

Answer 1

The problem that I see with your code is that __FILE__ resolves symlinks automatically.

From the PHP Manual on Magic Constants

... Since PHP 4.0.2, __FILE__ always contains an absolute path with symlinks resolved ...

You can try using $_SERVER["SCRIPT_FILENAME"] instead.

$root = realpath(dirname(dirname(dirname(dirname($_SERVER["SCRIPT_FILENAME"])))));
  if (file_exists($root.'/wp-load.php')) {
      // WP 2.6
      require_once($root.'/wp-load.php');
  }

Note that I added the realpath() function to the root directory. Depending on your setup, you may or may not need it.

EDIT: Use $_SERVER["SCRIPT_FILENAME"] instead of $_SERVER["PHP_SELF"] for the file system path.