require_once not working as I expect it to

Question

Possible Duplicate:
relative path in require_once doesn’t work

I have a project structure as such:

ProjectName/
   src
     test
       TestClass.php
   tests
     TestTestClass.php

WhenI try and do require_once '/ProjectName/src/test/TestClass.php'; into tests/TestTestClass.php I get an error from PHP stating that: no such file or directory.

I have checked the spelling, I have checked everything. I cannot give it the full /home/userName/bla/bla path as I need to hand this off to some one else.

Any ideas?

You are using an absolute path. Is `/ProjectName` in your absolute root directory? — Pekka, Jan 19 '13 at 22:15
Have you tried using relative paths? e.g. `require_once '../src/test/TestClass.php'` — Kyle, Jan 19 '13 at 22:15

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 19 '13 at 22:15

2

This is expected behaviour. When you execute TestTestClass.php, your working directory is set to ProjectName/tests.

It would be better to use ../src/test/TestClass.php.

Your path is actually absolute, so you will be working straight from /, which is not what you're expecting. If your include_path is set to your server's directory root, then your code will work without the first /. If you don't wish to rely on include_path or arbitrary levelling (with ..), you can always set an environment variable in your first file that defines the full path to your application root, then use that for all includes.

For example, /ProjectName/index.php:

define('APPPATH', __DIR__);

.. and in /ProjectName/tests/TestTestClass.php:

require_once APPPATH . '/src/test/TestClass.php';

answered Jan 19 '13 at 22:15

Rudi Visser

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`require_once` is not a function and therefore doesn't need parenthesis. – Jason McCreary Jan 19 '13 at 22:20
@JasonMcCreary That's why it does not have any. – Rudi Visser Jan 19 '13 at 22:22
@JasonMcCreary Was also missing some substantial stuff, I write then fix ;) – Rudi Visser Jan 19 '13 at 22:24
This plan does not work as the index is never seen, ran or understood when running the php unit tests. How ever ../path/to/file.php works – Adam Jan 19 '13 at 22:35
1

@Adam `index.php` was simply an example filename, this can just as well be in a `config.php` which is included. You can simply use a relative path as I first explained to the same effect if it's isolated. – Rudi Visser Jan 19 '13 at 22:37

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 19 '13 at 22:15

1

absolute filepaths passed to require/include/require_once/include_once all work from the filesystem root, not to the webserver root

answered Jan 19 '13 at 22:15

Mark Baker

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score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 19 '13 at 22:16

0

Use the special DIR to get the current path of the script and like so it will be easier for you to find script paths:

require_once(__DIR__ . '../folder/whatever.php');

answered Jan 19 '13 at 22:16

Tommaso Belluzzo

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score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 19 '13 at 22:16

You'd benefit from creating a path constant for your project. This is quiet easy to do with the __FILE__ constant and dirname().

define('ROOT_PATH', dirname(__FILE__));

The above could be put in a configuration file so it is easier to include files throughout your project.

require_once ROOT_PATH . '/src/test/TestClass.php';

I'd also suggest looking into an autoloader.

require_once not working as I expect it to

4 Answers4