Include within an included file is not working with relative paths

Question

This bug has depleted my rational thinking power over the past 64 minutes and I really don't know what I should do.

When i use the following 3 lines in an included file:

var_dump(file_exists('G:/xampp/htdocs/myproject/public_html/includes/htmlPurifierAndMarkdown.php')); //retuurns true
var_dump(__FILE__);
include '../htmlPurifierAndMarkdown.php'; //gives error

i get the following output :

boolean true

string 'G:\xampp\htdocs\myproject\public_html\includes\classes\genral.class.php' (length=71)


( ! ) Warning: include(../htmlPurifierAndMarkdown.php) [function.include]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in G:\xampp\htdocs\myproject\public_html\includes\classes\genral.class.php on line 4
Call Stack
#   Time    Memory  Function    Location
1   0.0005  345328  {main}( )   ..\add.php:0
2   0.0036  382408  include( 'G:\xampp\htdocs\myproject\public_html\includes\classes\events.class.php' )    ..\add.php:28
3   0.0041  398024  include( 'G:\xampp\htdocs\myproject\public_html\includes\classes\standardpost.class.php' )  ..\events.class.php:2
4   0.0047  413928  include( 'G:\xampp\htdocs\myproject\public_html\includes\classes\genral.class.php' )    ..\standardpost.class.php:2

In a nutshell:

1. The first line tells that the file is not a part of my imagination and it actually exists.
2. The second line tells the location of my calling script, on examining the paths closely, you'll notice that the file I'm trying to include resides in the parent directory
3. Include function says that file dosent exist

so am i just imagining stuff or is this some serious php bug?

Update

when i access genral.class.php manually, no error is generated. do special rules apply when including from within an included file?

Update 2

When i set the include path to '../includes/htmlPurifierAndMarkdown.php' , which is the path relative to the main calling script, which in turn includes a script which includes genral.class.php it works, but since this new include is relative to only one of the many calling scripts, it breaks down for the others. Do special rules apply when including a file from within an included file??

Answer 1

The __FILE__ constant returns the full path and filename of the file containing that line. It is possible for this file to be located inside a directory other than the current working directory. In your particular example you can use this:

include dirname(dirname(__FILE__)) . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR . 'htmlPurifierAndMarkdown.php';

---

An example of what might be going on is as follows:

1. The file being executed is /example.com/public_html/index.php
2. Current working directory is /example.com/public_html/
3. The index file includes /example.com/public_html/includes/classes/genral.class.php
4. The above file attempts to include ../htmlPurifierAndMarkdown.php
5. The .. is translated relative to current working directory and not relative to the included file. Thus you end up with /example.com/htmlPurifierAndMarkdown.php and a nasty error message.

Answer 2

../ is a relative path -- relative to the current working directory. And the current working directory is the one in which the outer script (the one being requested by the browser) resides. In the above example, PHP will resolve paths relative to add.php.

Use dirname(__FILE__) to get the absolute path of the current file (whether requested or included). You can use it to calculate absolute path to a known file using relative paths.

Answer 3

try to include file like this :

include(realpath(dirname(__FILE__) . '/../') . 'htmlPurifierAndMarkdown.php');

in other way you have these files ::

/index.php  
/includes/classes/genral.class.php  
/includes/htmlPurifierAndMarkdown.php 

index.php :

include('/includes/classes/genral.class.php'); 

genral.class.php :

include('/includes/htmlPurifierAndMarkdown.php');

if you begin with index.php this will be work fine ...