2009/2/18 PJ <af.gour...@videotron.ca>: > Paul M Foster wrote: >> On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 12:05:21PM -0500, PJ wrote: >> >>> Stuart wrote: >>>> 2009/2/18 PJ <af.gour...@videotron.ca>: >>>> >>>>> Stuart wrote: >>>>> >>>>>>>> <?php include dirname(__FILE__)."/../header.php"; ?> >>>>>>>> >> >> <snip> >> >>>> >>> What confused me here is that often, in examples, there are all sorts of >>> references to files and there seems to be no standard as to how to refer >>> to them in non-scripts such as these e-mails. So, I thought that >>> dirname(_FILE_) was a general reference to a directory name and a >>> file... :-( >>> I don't want to defend myself here, but I cannot be expected to know all >>> functions and look up anything that might resemble a function... >>> I still do not understand, and that is the keyword here, I am trying to >>> understand things - what does /../header.php mean. I know the 2 dots >>> mean a higher directory in Unix... but I understood that ../ would mean >>> the root directory - so what is the / before the ../header.php mean? >>> When including scripts or pages, i find that if I am referencing to the >>> current directory, just the filename or /filename works. If the >>> reference is up a level, ../ works >>> >>> e.g. to reference root/images/ from root/authors = ../images/file.ext >>> from root = /images/file.ext or images/file.ext >>> >>> I haven't needed to go to a deeper level yet. >> >> Let's break it down: dirname(__FILE__) . "/../header.php"; >> >> __FILE__ is a constant that represents the filename of whatever file >> it's in. This filename includes the directory to the file. >> >> dirname() parses out just the directory for the filename passed as a >> parameter. >> >> The "." is, of course, the "concatenate" parameter for PHP. So we're >> going to add on whatever comes after the directory for the file. >> >> "/../header.php" >> >> This one is a little trickier. We want a file called header.php, but >> it's in a directory just above where you are. In Unix/Linux (and >> therefore most internet servers), "../header.php" represents a file >> called header.php in the directory just above where you are. Now, you'll >> notice that what's quoted is "/../header.php", not "../header.php". >> There's a leading slash there. Why? That's because we're going to append >> it to a directory which has no leading slash. So if dirname(__FILE__) >> yields "/var/www/includes", and you just add "../header.php" to it, >> you'd get: /var/www/includes../header.php, not the file you want. The >> file you want is: /var/www/includes/../header.php. And in this case, >> header.php actually resides in /var/www (one directory up from >> /var/www/includes). >> >> Paul > OK, great explanation... it's what I had been hoping for ... you're a > great "educator" > Thanks...
I agree that Paul's explanation was good, and I apologise for not doing a better job of explaining it, but it would have taken you 30 seconds to break apart the line I posted and echo out each element which would have told you exactly what was happening. Teach a man to fish... For future reference, any token in PHP followed by a ( will be a function name. And if the token starts with a $ it's a function name in a variable. > In my case though, changing from > > Original: include ("lib/header1.php"); > to: include dirname(_FILE_)."/lib/header1.php"; > works, but what have I gained? You have gained the ability to not care about INI settings. Your original requires the current directory (.) to be specified as one of the paths in include_path. In my experience you can never be too specific or configuration-independent whether you think you're likely to change server or not. -Stuart -- http://stut.net/ -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php