Why not just use /inc/footer.php instead of ($_SERVER["DOCUMENT_ROOT"] . "/inc/footer.php"

Hey Ben,

It's because it falls within the PHP function of "include". PHP doesn't use the root relative like HTML does.

Try it in your project and you'll see. Put this into your /receipt/index.php:

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

It won't work. This is because PHP is a server side language. Meaning, it can see deeper into the server than your website's HTML can.

Your website might be hosted at http://localhost/ but your actual website, from the server perspective is at: c:\XAMPP\htdocs\

So, in PHP, when you do this:

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

PHP will actually be looking for c:\inc\footer.php. You can verify this by creating an "inc" directory in c: then putting a copy of footer.php into it. The error on receipt.php will go away and you'll see your footer.

I hope this helps explain things :-).