PHP Autoload with spl_autoload_register in a sub folder

Question

My directory structure is something like below

> Root
> -Admin // admin area
> --index.php // admin landing page, it includes ../config.php
> -classes // all classes
> ---template.php 
> ---template_vars.php // this file is used inside template.php as $template_vars = new tamplate_vars();
> -templates // all templates in different folder
> --template1
> -index.php
> -config.php

in my config.php file i have used

<?php
.... // some other php code
spl_autoload_register(NULL, FALSE);
spl_autoload_extensions('.php');
spl_autoload_register();

classes\template::setTemplate('template/template1');
classes\template::setMaster('master');
 .... // some other php code
?>

I have set the proper namespaces (only in classes) and in my index.php on root I access the classes

<?php 

require 'config.php';
$news_array = array('news1', 'news1'); // coming from database

$indexTemplate = new \classes\template('index');
$indexTemplate->news_list = $news_array; // news_list variable inside index template is magically created and is the object of template_vars class
$indexTemplate->render();
?>

So far it is working perfect, it renders the template and populate the template vars,

but when I open index file in admin folder, it gives following error

Fatal error: Class 'classes\template_vars' not found in /home/aamir/www/CMS/classes/template.php on line 47

any idea how to fix this thing. It works on root, but from inside admin panel it doesnot work

Answer 1

You have to use a trick for that:

set_include_path(get_include_path() . PATH_SEPARATOR . '../');

Before you include ../config.php OR

set_include_path(get_include_path() . PATH_SEPARATOR . __DIR__ . '/');

Inside config.php

Answer 2

I faced the same problem (on windows) and i think i can explain the matter.

For instance let's take two simple scripts, the first one creates a class in a namespace called root in a dir called root:

-root\sampleClass.php:

namespace root;

class sampleClass
{
    public function __construct()
    {
        echo __CLASS__;
    }

    public function getNameSpace()
    {
        return __NAMESPACE__;
    }
}

and the second script located here root\index.php and contains only those two lines :

spl_autoload_register();
$o = new sampleClass;

then if you run the root\index.php script you will get a FATAL error like this:

( ! ) SCREAM: Error suppression ignored for
( ! ) Fatal error: spl_autoload(): Class sampleClass could not be loaded in C:\wamp\www\root\test.php on line 4

And if you remove the namespace keyword on the root\sampleClass.php, the error vanish.

So I won't conclude anything about the demeanor of the core php because i am not a php core dev but something like this happen:

If you don't specify a namespace the spl_autoload_register(); function will also look in the current dir (which is root\) and find the class called sampleClass.php but if you specify a namespace like root in our example the spl_autoload_register(); function will try to load a file located somewhere like "root\root".

So at this point you have two solutions :

1) first which is not proper is to create a subdir called root which also contains the sampleClass.php

2) second which is better is to add a kind of trick in the index.php script :

set_include_path(get_include_path().PATH_SEPARATOR.realpath('..'));

which will tell the spl_autoload_register() function to check in the parent dir.

That's all