How to use a PHP includes across multiple directories/sub directories with relative paths

Question

I\'m having difficulty with paths in a cms system I\'m attempting to build, I\'ve basically got a folder with my header.php and footer.php files inside.

These are in

Answer 1

i usualy have a file called config in my application root and in it i define a constant for base path and a few others:

define('APP_BASE_PATH', dirname(__FILE__));
define('APP_FUNCTIONS_PATH', APP_BASE_PATH . '/functions');

and i include my files like

include (APP_BASE_PATH . 'includes/another_file.php');
include (APP_FUNCTIONS_PATH . '/function_file.php');

that way i can place my aplication in whatever directory, plus i can move files around without to much worries.

also using full path makes the include faster