Using a constant in require_once

Question

I'm using the following to define root while in development:

define('LOCAL_URL', 'http://localhost/~xampp/Mysite');
define('REMOTE_URL', 'http://example.com');
define('DEV_VERSION', true);
if(DEV_VERSION)
    define('URL', LOCAL_URL);
else
    define('URL', REMOTE_URL);

This concept is new to me and I'm a bit of a PHP beginner so please be gentle.

I'm trying to use 'URL' in 'require_once' and I can't seem to get it to work (as in the required file is not included). I've tried the following:

require_once URL.'/phpincludes/coming-events.php';
require_once(URL.'/phpincludes/coming-events.php');
require_once URL . '/phpincludes/coming-events.php';
require_once (URL . '/phpincludes/coming-events.php');
require_once(URL.'phpincludes/coming-events.php');

I've checked http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.require-once.php and have searched on Stackoverflow and I'm not really making any headway at all.

I'm sure it's a really stupid and basic error I'm making here, but I'm at a loss and would really appreciate some help!

Claritaclarity

Looks like you got bad advise with your last question. Use the different base URLs only for outputting HTML references. (Regarding that stylesheet issue, just use it in <base href=...> to compensate). – Brnaby

Thanks mario. So I shouldn't even be using it for img paths? ie. <img src="<?php echo URL ?>/images/something.jpg"> – Claritaclarity

A single base href will make images and stylesheets work. But only if you have relative paths. Otherwise you need the URL prefix everywhere. – Brnaby

Answer 1

The problem is probably because URL has a protocol, and it is trying to open the file over HTTP.

Including files remotely is disabled by default in PHP (allow_url_include), and for good reason.

You should be passing relative or absolute paths to files in your filesystem to be included.

Ironwood

Thanks Alex. I'm using define so I can use relative paths, so now I'm really confused. I posted this question yesterday which resulted in my using define. I don't fully understand what you're saying but I'll... uhm... try something else perhaps? – Claritaclarity