How to append a path to PHP's include_path in .htaccess

Question

Currently on my site I'm using statements like:

include 'head.php';
include '../head.php';
include '../../head.php';

depending on how many nested folders deep I am. I'm sure there is a better way to do this.

I'm convinced .htaccess is the solution, but I'm not sure how to go about implementing it. If I insert:

php_value include_path "public/html/root"

... I lose the rest of my paths (/usr/lib/php, etc). I naively tried:

php_value include_path $include_path . "(path)"

but of course this didn't work. How could I prepend or append a single path to this list with .htaccess?

Answer 1

If you can't edit the php.ini file itself, you could add

set_include_path(get_include_path() . PATH_SEPARATOR . $path_to_add);

before your include statements.

However if you find yourself having include or require troubles, it is probably a code smell. The best solution would be a good object-oriented design with a good __autoload function.