What is the most scalable PHP-based directory structure for a large site?

Question

I am creating a very large PHP MVC-based site that will have a large library of php classes, javascripts, and many css files (not to mention a large amount of files for the MVC).

For the first time ever, I am actually taking the time to plan out a clean and organized directory structure.

What directory structures do you typically use, and which will be easiest to manuever when there are thousands of files?

Answer 1

For core files which are included: approot/inc/

For data access functions and classes are in: approot/dao/

For javascripts: approot/scripts/

For CSS: approot/styles/

For images: approot/img/

For static content (normally for user profile pictures or uploaded images): approot/static/

For caches: approot/caches/

For templates or View files: approot/templates/

All pages file: approot/

Structure from Samstyle PHP Framework

Answer 2

In my experience, you can never plan for this. You can try to follow what frameworks do, but I find I never quite fit exactly into their mold.

I recommend to just keep a good rule of thumb for 20 files in a directory maximum. If you find you need more, just create a few sub directories and move common components in there.

Answer 3

I use codeigniter for small and big projects. It's MVC feature is moderately good.

• codeIgniter\system\application\config : contain all kind of configuration files like DB,Payment gateway, ftp config, routes and ...
• codeIgniter\system\application\models: contain all kinds of database classes, you should create sub folders according to your need, I used customers, mailData, paymentModel, report, web-service and ....
• codeIgniter\system\application\views: contain all kinds of files that will work as output for clients, you should think of reuse these files if possible. Like the models you had to create sub folder like administration, reports, email, email_template .....
• codeIgniter\system\application\controllers : this is the most important part. This will help to create SEO url, so you should be more careful about sub folders this time. You can create like administration, products, reports, orders..... and consider a good name for the functions of the controller class.

These were for the PHP/HTML file.

Now about the other files:

• codeIgniter\images: for the images
• codeIgniter\scripts: for the Java scripts and their framework
• codeIgniter\styles: for the CSS
• codeIgniter\uploads: for the uploaded files, if you don't want to put files in the DB

For the detail see codeIgniter framework in detail.

Here "codeIgniter\" is the approot

Answer 4

You should have one directory as web root, where only files you want exposed to the whole internet should reside.

project/
 web/
  index.php
  css/
  js/
  images/
 config/
 lib/

• web/ is the root shown to visitors
• lib/ is here the library folder, and where autoload look for files.

You can add more subfolders to project/ like controller, modules, view, helper, etc. This depeds on your framework.