I have this weird problem where I get this error:

Warning: include_once(../DAL/ServiceRequestDataAccess.php) [function.include-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in C:\wamp\www\MSRS\BLL\NewRequestFunctions.php on line 3

My file structure is as follows:

MSRS->DAL/Data Access classes and functions
->BLL/Business Logic classes and functions
->Example.php

As shown in the error message, ServiceRequestDataAccess.php is located in the DAL folder, and it's calling page is the NewRequestFunctions.php in the BLL folder. My problem now is that NewRequestFunctions can't seem to locate ServiceRequestDataAccess.

Sample code from NewRequestFunctions


This is weird because I have another code file located in BLL named EvaluateLogin.php with the following:


and they work perfectly. Also I have an include_once("dbconnect.php") statement in all Data Access code files. My dbconnect is located in the DAL folder as well. Another weird thing is when I move dbconnect and ServiceRequestDataAccess to the BLL folder, the web app works fine.

Please help.

Is the NewRequestFunctions page being called directly or included from another page. Other than that, just make sure spelling is correct, and that the file is indeed actually there, I maybe missing something.

To troubleshoot you could also try an absolute path.

Is it possible that the file system is case sensitive?

I already tried the absolute path, e.g. http://localhost/MSRS/DAL/ServiceDataAccess.php, and yes, the files exist in the folders.

The weird thing is that I never called the functions within the NewServiceFunction.php code file yet. I just included it in one of the presentation pages.



Sorry for double posting, I'm using Zend and it's on autocomplete and I copy-pasted the file names to reduce errors.


This post has been edited by thor78: 12 May, 2008 - 12:11 AM

When I mean absolute, you have to use the file system path, ex. c:\blah , also Windows is not case sensitive.

Try the absolute path, copied from windows explorer or something, also try using this


should come out 1 if it exists, 0 if not, or if safe mode is blocking it.

Well it died, meaning it exists. But I still can't find out why it can't see through the logical name.

when it died, did it output a 1, if so , thats good. But relative paths are difficult. Try to modify the $filename string.

try something like


If that fails , then try ./DAL/ServiceRequestDataAccess.php , or ../../DAL etc.

There is something strange going on here, or either it's right in front of us.

Yep the output was 1 when I tried


But did not output anything when I tried this:


AND fortunately using


worked. Thanks a lot!

And by the way, how different are the "./" and the "../" in terms of relative path seeking? A bit confusing.

This post has been edited by thor78: 12 May, 2008 - 01:22 AM

When you view a directory listing you will see that there is always two directories.

Dot & double dot.

A single dot always represents current directory, & the double dots always represents the previous directory.

With that in mind, in a Windows enviornment:

C:\windows> cd ..
will take you to the previous directory. C:\

C:\windows> dir ./win.exe
You are looking for win.exe in the current directory.

Thank you again!

Good deal, glad to see it's working.

Still getting problems with './' and '../', but I found a better solution here

Instead of guessing our current working directory or it's location relative to root, we can use $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']. An example output would be C:\wamp\www.

So putting it together in a require_once/include_once statement:


Works like a charm.