Issue When Including PHP File Located Outside Document Root

[bryman79]

I am attempting to use AJAX in an HTML file in the "DocumentRoot" folder to return a response from a PHP file. It works fine if the PHP file is located in the “DocumentRoot” folder, but does not work if it is located outside the “DocumentRoot” folder and included by another PHP file located in the “DocumentRoot” folder. Specifically, no response is received from the server and the following error is returned via the PHP error log (memory_limit set to 1M to reduce the amount of time before the PHP error is presented – a higher memory limit only increases the delay before presenting the error):

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PHP Fatal error:  Allowed memory size of 2097152 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 4096 bytes) in C:\Users\Username\Desktop\site\DocumentRoot\test.php on line 1.

No other errors are thrown in the PHP error log or the Apache error log.

I am running XAMPP (version 7.0.18) on a Windows 10 machine. The path for the “DocumentRoot” folder is set in the httpd.conf file:

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DocumentRoot "C:\Users\Username\Desktop\site\DocumentRoot"
<Directory "C:\Users\Username\Desktop\site\DocumentRoot">   
  Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes ExecCGI   
  AllowOverride All   
  Require all granted
</Directory>

I created a simple test case with a “test.php” file and a “test-process.php” file. The “test.php” file has the following code (in its entirety):

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<?php include 'test-process.php'; ?>

The “test-process.php” file has the following code (in its entirety):

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<?php
  $output['message'] = 'Hello World';
  echo json_encode($output);
?>

The following include_path is set in the php.ini file:

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include_path = ".;c:\Users\Username\Desktop\site\includes"


Removing/renaming the PHP file from the includes folder and removing/renaming the includes folder itself have no effect on the error. I would expect to see some error stating that the file or directory could not be found, but there is none.

I tried using "include_once" (instead of "include") in the "test.php" file and no errors are given. So perhaps the "Allowed memory size..." error is caused from attempting to repeatedly include the "test-process.php" file.

I am new to XAMPP and cannot figure this out. Although I haven’t tried this exact situation on a production server, I have used AJAX in the past with no such issues on production servers. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Nobbie]

I am very very (very!) sure that you also have a "test-process.php" in your DocumentRoot, which also includes test-process.php or test.php and so you are running in a forever loop. When i do so, my test behaves exactly(!) as yours: no error message if i remove the include folder and after a while i get "Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 134217728 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 32768 bytes) in /hdd/lampp/htdocs/test-process.php on line 1".

[bryman79]

You are correct - many thanks! I had originally setup the test case using a "test-process.php" file in the "DocumentRoot" folder which includes the "test-process.php" file outside of the "DocumentRoot" folder, but added a new file "test.php" (without deleting the original "test-process.php" file in the "DocumentRoot" folder) to run the test case before posting.

However, I have done this before (e.g, included files outside the root directory with the same name as the file with the include statement located in the root directory ) on production servers without any problems. I have to presume this is because it is not looking in the root directory for files to be included. Is this unique to XAMPP? Is there a line that can be added to the php.ini or .htaccess files which removes the root directory from the include path or otherwise prevents including files from the root directory?

[Nobbie]

I have to presume this is because it is not looking in the root directory for files to be included. Is this unique to XAMPP?

No, its not unique to Xampp (neither unique to your online server), it is unique to... YOURSELF!!

Is there a line that can be added to the php.ini or .htaccess files which removes the root directory from the include path or otherwise prevents including files from the root directory?

Yes, of course!! YOU applied this line to php.ini:

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include_path = ".;c:\Users\Username\Desktop\site\includes"

Why did you include the dot "." in the very first position? The dot "." means "current directory" and if you are starting a script from the DocumentRoot, the DocumentRoot becomes the "current directory". Therefore PHP at first looks in your DocumentRoot in this case, as you started test.php from DocumentRoot and as you also put a test-process.php into the DocumentRoot, PHP found that and included that. ITS ALL ON YOU!! Either remove the dot from the include path or put it at the end of include_path, so that PHP first looks into your user folder.

[Altrea]

Always keep your includes independend from current and working directory.
Build absolute paths with the help of __DIR__.

I don't know a really good english post about that topic, but a brilliant german one
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/324 ... quire-once (english)
http://www.ermshaus.org/2012/09/php-inc ... s-ohne-dir (german)