Different behavior when PHP script executed through cron job

Question

I have a script, let's call it mainfile.php that has an include in it for a file in the same directory. I am including it as follows:

<?php
error_reporting(E_ALL);
ini_set('display_errors', 1);

require_once './myincludefile.php';
?>

If I do the following:

nohup php mainfile.php >/dev/null

It runs without any problems. However, if turn this into a cron job, I get the following message (in my mail spool):

PHP Warning:  require_once(./myincludefile.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/code/mainfile.php on line 5
PHP Fatal error:  require_once(): Failed opening required './myincludefile.php' (include_path='.:/usr/share/pear:/usr/share/php') in/home/code/mainfile.php on line 5

Any ideas?

Answer 1

That's because the current working directory of the script is not the same when called via cron. (I assume it is /, the root directory)

Change the require_once to:

require_once __DIR__ . '/myincludefile.php';

__DIR__ will always contain the directory where the current script is located - not the current working directory. That´s why it is handy to build relative paths.

Answer 2

Please change path to absolute path in require_once './myincludefile.php';

and run this command as

nohup php-q mainfile.php >/dev/null