Is there some security restriction while requiring files from a parent directory in PHP in mountain lion? [closed]

Question

I'm having lot of troubles making this call in PHP:

 require_once ( '../interfaces/class-ai1ec-get-data-from-cache.php' );

while if I change to a call like this:

 require_once ( 'interfaces/class-ai1ec-get-data-from-cache.php' );

everything works as expected. I only have this problem on my MacBook Pro. I tried using MAMP and Zend Server but nothing works for me and someone said it's a kind of security restriction.

This is the error message

Warning:
require_once(../interfaces/class-ai1ec-get-data-from-cache.php):
failed to open stream: No such file or directory in
/usr/local/zend/apache2/htdocs/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/all-in-one-event-calendar-premium/app/strategies/get_data_from_cache/class-ai1ec-get-data-from-db-cache.php
on line 3 Fatal error: require_once(): Failed opening required
'../interfaces/class-ai1ec-get-data-from-cache.php'
(include_path='.:/usr/local/zend/share/ZendFramework/library:/usr/local/zend/share/pear')
in
/usr/local/zend/apache2/htdocs/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/all-in-one-event-calendar-premium/app/strategies/get_data_from_cache/class-ai1ec-get-data-from-db-cache.php
on line 3

I tried Zend, Mamp and the internal Apache.

Answer 1

the base path(s) for require and include is configured in the include path.

files are being loaded relative to that. so, if you prepend your path with .., you're telling php to look for the file one directory level higher.

also, the error message tells you that your include_path includes . which is the current working directory. the cwd relates to the scope (directory) in which the php script is being executed (or has itself been included from).

addition:

in this particular case php looks for the file at the following locations:

• ../interfaces/class-ai1ec-get-data-from-cache.php
• /usr/local/zend/share/ZendFramework/interfaces/class-ai1ec-get-data-from-cache.php
• /usr/local/zend/share/interfaces/class-ai1ec-get-data-from-cache.php

the first one is special as it is relative to your document root (...i guess, because it looks like you're using wordpress).

Answer 2

The only way to get things working was using

 require_once( str_replace('//','/',dirname(__FILE__).'/') .'../interfaces/class-ai1ec-get-data-from-cache.php');