Thanks Tobius, Jim & Andy. I didn't know anything about "include_path". Thanks to all for discussing it in detail. @Tobius I did know about "../" (double dot) but had never seen "./" (single dot followed by forward slash) before. @Jim Yes you are right......both statements does the same thing. @Andy Thanks for explaining in simple language. And really sorry for getting back so late. regards Sachin On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 8:53 PM, Andy McKenzie <amckenzie4@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 10:04 AM, Tobias Fichtner <info@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > > > wrote: > > > Hi, > > > > the point is that both include the same files if the include path > contains > > "./" already. > > > > > > > Except that they don't. They include one of the same files, but there's no > guarantee that it will be the one called. > > Say I use "includes/config.inc.php". Suppose that my include_path is set > to "/usr/php/54/usr/lib64:usr/php/54/usr/share/pear:.". In this case, > there are three files that could be called. The system first looks for > /usr/php/54/usr/lib64/includes/config.inc.php. Then it looks for > usr/php/54/usr/share/pear/includes/config.inc.php. Then it looks for > ./includes/config.inc.php. There are three possible files that can be > included there. If there's a file in the first location, that's the one > that will be included. Now, you can avoid that by making "." be the first > entry in the list (and, in fact, it is on my system), but unless you know > what the include path is you cannot guarantee what file will be called. > > Now suppose I use "./includes/config.inc.php", and I'm calling it from > "/var/www/htdocs/myproject". There is only one possible file that can be > called. > > Is this nitpicking? Yes, a bit. However, I've been in a situation where > it mattered. It was an early IT job, and I didn't really know what I was > doing, and neither did the other person working on the web server. They > wrote a new program, and needed to add something to the include_path. > Rather than do it in their program, they went in and edited php.ini, adding > their directory as the first entry in the list. Since we both had called > files called "config.inc", my program stopped working. > > My point isn't so much that either way is wrong, as that if you don't > understand the behavior it can mess things up, and you won't understand > why. > > Andy >
