Hiding includes

[russgri]

I have this config.php file in a folder "data" in the same directory as public_html

<?php 
//config.php
$host = "domain.name"; //your domain name 
$port = 2082; 
$path = "/frontend/x2/mail/doaddpop.html"; //change x2 to your theme. 
$cpaneluser = "Cpanel Username"; 
$cpanelpass = "Cpanel Password"; 
$authstr = "$cpaneluser:$cpanelpass";
// Server local variables
$data ="/home/host2xar/data"; //include $data."/config.php"; 
// Defines local variables               
$server_inc = $_SERVER["DOCUMENT_ROOT"]."/inc";  
$server = $_SERVER["DOCUMENT_ROOT"]."/"; //include $server."index.php";
?>

Here is my index.php

<?php 
//index.php 
include $data."/config.php"; 
include $server."setup.php"; 
include $data."/header.php"; 
include $data."/right.php"; 
include $server."content.php"; 
include $data."/footer.php"; 
?>

Warning: main(/config.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/host2xar/public_html/index.php on line 2 

Where is my error?
Newbie here...

[Buddha]

In index.php, I don't see where $data is set? I do see it set in config.php but you need to set $data to include() config.php. Set $data inside index.php.

Also, I'm not sure PHP can access anything outside of document root? You may have to move data directory into public_html? I could be wrong about this on this server. You could set the permission to 600 or something just as restrictive on the data directory?

[Jonathan]

I'd say simply use require() as you can
use more than one, or more than one in a certain way;
Forget the exact details why its better,
but was reading in a PHP/mySQL book about it.

<?php
require('folder/file.php');
?>

Simple as pie

[bd2003]

yup.. agree with above... looks like you need to do either define $data in your index.php before any of your includes or include your config.php explicitly, ie :
include "data/config.php";

make sure you put this include first....