I thought I would download a package solution of a web application to see how other applications handle file paths. I downloaded phpbb and they have a file called common.php located in their project folder (in this case: phpbb)
in common.php they ahve this bit of code:
if (defined('IN_CRON'))
{
$phpbb_root_path = dirname(__FILE__) . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR;
}
In index.php they are using the $phpbb_root_path variable to include common.php.
How is this possible? If that variable is defined in common.php then how can they use it to include common.php itself?