Get Absolute Directory Path of Current File in PHP
If your code is including other files, you will encounter problems like «The file is not found». This is because, PHP doesn’t know the absolute path of file. So, if you are including files on another file, you should mention the absolute path of file.
But, If you’re PHP application is being used by other people, then the absolute path which you mentioned in your system won’t be the one of the others’ systems. So, you have to dynamically mention the absolute path that will work on any systems.
Example of Problem
Here is one of the case scenarios where you encounter the include problem.
Suppose, the index.php file is including the file1.php which is in the inc directory :
The inc directory also contains other files such as file2.php, file3.php, file4.php etc……. If you want to include the file2.php in file1.php like below, it won’t work :
In file1.php, the root directory is that of index.php. Because we are including the file1.php from index.php which is outside the directory.**
I think you understand the problem. Luckily, I have a solution that fixes this problem.
Solution of Problem
Since PHP 4.0.2, __FILE__ returns the absolute path of the running script even if it’s an include file. By giving the __FILE__ constant to the dirname function, you will get the directory of the script. So, code in file1.php would become :
The version 5.3.0 and it’s later versions have a new constant called __DIR__ which is the short way of dirname(__FILE__). You can also use this in replacement of what we used earlier. Now code in file1.php will become :
You can see more PHP Magic Constants in this manual page.
getcwd
Returns the current working directory on success, or false on failure.
On some Unix variants, getcwd() will return false if any one of the parent directories does not have the readable or search mode set, even if the current directory does. See chmod() for more information on modes and permissions.
Examples
Example #1 getcwd() example
// current directory
echo getcwd () . «\n» ;
// current directory
echo getcwd () . «\n» ;
The above example will output something similar to:
If the PHP interpreter has been built with ZTS (Zend Thread Safety) enabled, the current working directory returned by getcwd() may be different from that returned by operating system interfaces. External libraries (invoked through FFI) which depend on the current working directory will be affected.
See Also
User Contributed Notes 20 notes
getcwd() returns the path of the «main» script referenced in the URL.
dirname(__FILE__) will return the path of the script currently executing.
I had written a script that required several class definition scripts from the same directory. It retrieved them based on filename matches and used getcwd to figure out where they were.
Didn’t work so well when I needed to call that first script from a new file in a different directory.
given a link
/some/link->/some/location/path
with linux bash,
if within the linked drawer /some/link
cd .. goes upper link /some/
cd -P .. goes upper destination /some/location/
with php
fopen («../file») goes upper destination /some/location/file
some others commented about ways obtaining the path below.
I found some luck with using $_SERVER[‘DOCUMENT_ROOT’] instead
to recraft an absolute path.
getcwd() appears to call the equivalent of PHP’s realpath() on the path. It never returns symlinks, but always the actual directory names in the path to the current working directory.
When running PHP on the command line, if you want to include another file which is in the same directory as the main script, doing just
include ‘./otherfile.php’ ;
?>
might not work, if you run your script like this:
/$ /path/to/script.php
because the current working dir will be set to ‘/’, and the file ‘/otherfile.php’ does not exist, because it is in ‘/path/to/otherfile.php’.
So, to get the directory in which the script resides, you can use this function:
function get_file_dir () global $argv ;
$dir = dirname ( getcwd () . ‘/’ . $argv [ 0 ]);
$curDir = getcwd ();
chdir ( $dir );
$dir = getcwd ();
chdir ( $curDir );
return $dir ;
>
?>
So you can use it like this:
include get_file_dir () . ‘/otherfile.php’ ;
// or even..
chdir ( get_file_dir ());
include ‘./otherfile.php’ ;
?>
Spent some time thinking this one out, maybe it helps someone 🙂
I use this code to replicate the pushd and popd DOS commands in PHP:
$g_DirStack = array();
function pushd ( $dir )
global $g_DirStack ;
array_push ( $g_DirStack , getcwd () );
chdir ( $dir );
>
function popd ( )
global $g_DirStack ;
$dir = array_pop ( $g_DirStack );
assert ( $dir !== null );
chdir ( $dir );
>
?>
This allows you to change the current directory with pushd, then use popd to «undo» the directory change when you’re done.
This function is often used in conjuction with basename(), i.e.
http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.basename.php
Some server’s has security options to block the getcwd()
«On some Unix variants, getcwd() will return FALSE if any one of the parent directories does not have the readable or search mode set, even if the current directory does.»
Just so you know, MacOS X is one of these variants (at least 10.4 is for me). You can make it work by applying ‘chmod a+rx’ to all folders from your site folder upwards.
This is a function to convert a path which looks something like this:
To a proper directory path:
function simplify_path ( $path )
//saves our current working directory to a variable
$oldcwd = getcwd ();
//changes the directory to the one to convert
//$path is the directory to convert (clean up), handed over to the //function as a string
chdir ( $path );
return gstr_replace ( ‘\\’ , ‘/’ , getcwd ());
//change the cwd back to the old value to not interfere with the script
chdir ( $oldcwd );
This function is really useful if you want to compare two filepaths which are not necesarily in a «cleaned up» state . It works in * NIX and WINDOWS alike
if you link your php to /bin/linkedphp and your php is at for ex /home/actual.php
when you run linkedphp in somewhere in your filesystem,
getcwd returns /bin instead of working dir,
solution: use dirname(__FILENAME__) instead
It appears there is a change in functionality in PHP5 from PHP4 when using the CLI tool. Here is the example: —
PHP4 returns /tmp
PHP5 returns /
Take care if you use getcwd() in file that you’ll need to include (using include, require, or *_once) in a script located outside of the same directory tree.
example:
//in /var/www/main_document_root/include/MySQL.inc.php
if ( strpos ( getcwd (), ‘main_’ )> 0 ) //code to set up main DB connection
>
?>
//in home/cron_user/maintenance_scripts/some_maintenance_script.php
require_once ( ‘/var/www/main_document_root/include/MySQL.inc.php’ );
?>
In the above example, the database connection will not be made because the call to getcwd() returns the path relative to the calling script ( /home/cron_user/maintenance_scripts ) NOT relative to the file where the getcwd() function is called.
Be aware when calling getcwd() in directories consisting of symlinks.
getcwd() is the equivalent of shell command «pwd -P» which resolves symlinks.
The shell command «pwd» is the equivalent of «pwd -L» which uses PWD from the environment without resolving symlinks. This is also the equivalent of calling getenv(‘PWD’).
As you could read in
http://www.php.net/manual/en/features.commandline.differences.php
the CLI SAPI does — contrary to other SAPIs — NOT automatically change the current working directory to the one the started script resides in.
A very simple workaround to regain the behaviour you’re used to from your «ordinary» webpage scripting is to include something like that at the beginning of your script:
chdir ( dirname ( __FILE__ ) );
?>
But because this is about reading or «finding» pathes, you might appreciate it if I share some more sophisticated tricks I frequently use in CLI scripts .
// Note: all pathes stored in subsequent Variables end up with a DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR
// how to store the working directory «from where» the script was called:
$initial_cwd = preg_replace ( ‘~(\w)$~’ , ‘$1’ . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR , realpath ( getcwd () ) );
// how to switch symlink-free to the folder the current file resides in:
chdir ( dirname ( realpath ( __FILE__ ) ) );
// how to store the former folder in a variable:
$my_folder = dirname ( realpath ( __FILE__ ) ) . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR ;
// how to get a path one folder up if $my_folder ends with \class\ or /class/ :
$my_parent_folder = preg_replace ( ‘~[/\\\\]class[/\\\\]$~’ , DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR , $my_folder );
// how to get a path one folder up in any case :
$my_parent_folder = preg_replace ( ‘~[/\\\\][^/\\\\]*[/\\\\]$~’ , DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR , $my_folder );
// how to make an array of OS-style-pathes from an array of unix-style-pathes
// (handy if you use config-files or so):
foreach( $unix_style_pathes as $unix_style_path )
$os_independent_path [] = str_replace ( ‘/’ , DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR , $unix_style_path );