Welcome to the Treehouse Community

Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.

Looking to learn something new?

Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.

Start your free trial

PHP Using PHP with MySQL Querying the Database with PHP Modifying Model Code

Kaetlyn McCafferty
Kaetlyn McCafferty
12,193 Points
Posted by Kaetlyn McCafferty
Kaetlyn McCafferty
12,193 Points

ROOT_PATH woes

I seem to be having issues with the model code in the 'Using PHP with MySQL' course due to the ROOT_PATH. What I've done is downloaded the files from the course and moved them into a folder titled "shirtsformike" in my htdocs. The database and database.php files I created up until this point worked perfectly well, but when I tried to load the model code (locally, at http://localhost:8888/shirtsformike/ ) I started encountering issues - nothing was loading other than a big connection error. I put in some error handling and started commenting out sections and discovered that the issues were being caused by file paths.

So, I went through the code and rewrote everything that called upon the ROOT_PATH with a normal path. For example; 

include(ROOT_PATH . 'inc/footer.php');

I changed the above code to the following

include('./inc/footer.php');

Once I replaced every single one of these include(ROOT_PATH); instances with just a file path, everything worked just fine. I'm not sure if it's worth noting or not, but the BASE_URL isn't giving me any problems, just ROOT_PATH.

I realize that the ROOT_PATH is located in the config.php file but I'm not sure how to modify it to work correctly (I don't know what/where $_SERVER or DOCUMENT_ROOT are). It looks like this;

define("BASE_URL","./");
define("ROOT_PATH",$_SERVER["DOCUMENT_ROOT"] . "/");

I tried changing that last "/" to "./" thinking maybe that's what were missing, but it had no effect. So, what am I missing here?

A million thanks for any help or suggestions! I hope this question makes sense.

1 Answer

Sergio Alen
Sergio Alen
26,726 Points
Sergio Alen
Sergio Alen
26,726 Points

Instead of using $_SERVER["DOCUMENT_ROOT"] in the constant ROOT_PATH can you try using $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] instead, So:

define("ROOT_PATH",$_SERVER["DOCUMENT_ROOT"] . "/");

change for 

define("ROOT_PATH",$_SERVER["HTTP_HOST"] . "/");

Also try echo ROOT_PATH see what's the value

Sergio Alen
Sergio Alen
26,726 Points

$_SERVER is a php global array created by the server that contains the header information such as server document path etc. $_SERVER["DOCUMENT_ROOT"] and because you're working in a local environment the value must be something like C:.. instead of http://localhost...