Variables not carrying over to included file in different directory

Question

So, I have a Wordpress theme.

In the functions.php file, I'm writing a function that looks something like this:

function my_function(){
    $var1 = 'apple';
    $var2 = 'orange';
    include get_bloginfo('stylesheet_directory').'/lib/fruits.php';
}

And the fruits.php file looks like this:

<?php

echo "My brother's favorite fruit is an $var1, but my favorite fruit is an $var2.";

?>

When I call my_function() somewhere in my theme, the echo statement in fruits.php displays on the screen, but the values of $var1 and $var2 do not display. They're simply blank.

Now here's the strange part. If I move fruits.php to the same directory as functions.php, and change the include statement in my_function() to this:

include 'fruits.php';

the 2 variables display just fine.

Any ideas what could be causing this problem?

FYI, I did try defining the path to fruits.php in a variable and then trying

include $path;

to no avail.

Answer 1

global $var1;
global $var2;

http://php.net/manual/en/language.variables.scope.php

Answer 2

There is an issue here with the scope of the variables in the function. Basically you have a file, lets say index.php within which you include the functions.php from some other directory. In that functions.php you define two variables within a function scope - meaning the variables are only visible within the function. In addition this function includes the fruits.php file.

Since fruits.php is technically included by the index.php, it looks for the variables $var1 and $var2 within index.php and they have not been defined there because they have been defined within a scope of the function. Basically it looks for a variables which it cannot see.

Here are two ways to solve this:

Method 1:

Modify the function to the following.

function my_function(){
    global $var1 = 'apple';
    global $var2 = 'orange';
    include get_bloginfo('stylesheet_directory').'/lib/fruits.php';
}

This way you are forcing the variables not to be visible within the function, but to be global, or in other words to be visible within the whole file.

Method 2:

Define the variables outside of the function.

$var1 = 'apple';
$var2 = 'orange';
function my_function(){
    include get_bloginfo('stylesheet_directory').'/lib/fruits.php';
}

For more information regarding variable scope, you can go here http://php.net/manual/en/language.variables.scope.php

Hope this helps.

Answer 3

You're prepending the include directory with wordpress stylesheet_directory (rather than STYLESHEETPATH constant for example) which is a URL, not a file path so it shouldn't be used to include files in PHP. Change this to correctly include the file.