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

Relative and absolute paths in PHP are a bit fragile because they depend not just on the current directory of the including file, but also the current working directory.

So you need a two-part solution.

Firstly, you need a redirector. Basically, this is an include file that serves as a single-point-of-call for all other pages. Its job is to go and include the rest of your infrastructure. All your pages call this redirector and only this redirector (but you can chain them).

This redirector now does

 include_once dirname(__FILE__).'/include/include.php';

This lets you change your infrastructure's include file, or location and all you have to update is one file. The dirname() call solves all the relative and absolute problems and has it look for the next step relative to itself. And by definition this only changes when you change it, so it will always work.

The second part is a custom includer so you can call content by name with a function and it goes and gets the right file. Burying this in your infrastructure directory is where is goes. It then becomes a black-box that the pages outside this area call without knowing and without needing to know how it works or where it is. That removes the need for path constants to include page fragments because you have one place doing it all for you.