Why do my php includes return, "failed to open stream: No such file or directory in..."

Question

I'm using simple include files for common elements on a mostly static website. I do so like this

<?php include('/inc/header.php'); ?>

But this doesn't work unless i remove the leading slash, and then it only works on pages in the root directory. What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

/... is an absolute path on unix systems. To specify a relative path use ./.... That will be relative to the called file's directory.

Answer 2

'/' means the real server root directory, not the web document root. If you need the relocatability use:

 include("{$_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']}/inc/header.php");

Answer 3

You have an absolute path - i.e. starts with /. So it is looking in your server root.

Without the slash it is a relative path and will look relative to the PHP file's path.