Auto prepend PHP file using htaccess relative to htaccess file

Question

I used:

php_value auto_prepend_file \"file.php\"

in my .htaccess that is in public_html folder.

Now when

Answer 1

In your .htaccess

php_value auto_prepend_file /auto_prepend_file.php
php_value auto_append_file /auto_append_file.php

Next create 2 files in root

1) /auto_append_file.php

$appendFile = $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . '/append.php';
require_once($appendFile);

2) /auto_prepend_file.php

$prependFile = $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . '/prepend.php';
require_once($prependFile);

Now it should work on local and live servers irrespective of physical path or website providing each of your websites use the same filenames append.php and prepend.php.

Answer 2

I would also add, that if you don't know the hard relative server paths (as with shared hosting and/or PaaS which generate paths dynamically on reboot/deploy) then you can do this:

php_value include_path ./:../:../../:../../../:../../../../
php_value auto_prepend_file "prepend.php"

In essence this is Pseudo dynamic method/hack/workaround for achieving a .htaccess relative DOCUMENT_ROOT include (which is NOT possible in Apache) as follows:

php_value include_path "%{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/"

For security, in prepend.php, it's then possible to re/declare include path as follows (to whatever appropriate paths fit the application):

ini_set('open_basedir',$_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].'/':<etc.>);

Could also look like the following if the last few directories are predictable:

php_value include_path ../../../path/to/www/
php_value auto_prepend_file "prepend.php"

Answer 3

The file must be inside PHP's include_path. So you must either set the file's directory to be in the include_path inside php.ini, or do it in the .htaccess with a php_value statement.

php_value include_path ".:/path/to/file_directory"
php_value auto_prepend_file "file.php"

If you use the above method in .htaccess, be sure to copy the include_path from php.ini in and add the :/path_to/file_directory so you don't lose any already needed includes.

Alternatively, just add :/path/to/file_directory to include_path directly in the php.ini

Update

If you cannot modify the include_path, you might try specifying a relative path to the auto_prepend_file. This should work since the file path sent is processed identically as if it was called with require():

php_value auto_prepend_file "./file.php"