PHP persistent inside js file

Question

I ran into a problem that I cannot understand.

During plugin development, I include the .js.php file (register / enqueue).

<? /* File.js.php */ Header("content-type: application/javascript"); $path = constant('WP_PLUGIN_DIR'); //test with function $path_2 = WP_PLUGIN_DIR; // test directly //can cause a problem with older browsers?? use text/javascript ?> //////////////////// Begin Tests //////////// var templateDir = "<?php echo WP_PLUGIN_URL ?>" ; var templateDir2 = "<?php echo $path ?>" ; var templateDir3 = "<?php echo $path_2 ?>" ; var templateDir4 = "<?php echo constant("WP_PLUGIN_URL") ?>"; var templateDir5 = "<?php echo __FILE__ ?>"; var templateDir6 = "<?php echo plugins_url( 'somedir/somefile.png' , dirname(__FILE__)) ?>"; 

Results:

 var templateDir = "WP_PLUGIN_URL" ; // simply outputs a string of the constant name var templateDir2 = "" ; // null or empty var templateDir3 = "WP_PLUGIN_DIR" ;// simply outputs a string of the constant name var templateDir4 = "//Warning: constant() Couldn't find constant WP_PLUGIN_URL in .." var templateDir5 = "path.to.js.php" // only one that works ; var templateDir6 = "Call to undefined function plugins_url() in.. " 

so my tests showed me that MAGIC CONSTANTS are working, but any WP CONSTANT will be unavailable.

This includes MY OWN constants that were declared in plugin.php (actually this is the reason I even started testing WP constants)

Interestingly, not only CONSTANTS are unavailable, but any wp function returns “unavailable”.

Permanent PHP should be available at all times through the application. Is this a specific WP issue? Is it intentional? or am i doing something wrong?

NOTE: I know there are other ways to do this (for example, use localize_script to pass variables to JS - or just use a function to output the path in the header), but first - these methods will not be ideal for me - and, more importantly, I want to understand why this method fails ...

EDIT I:

Altuh @ Matt Beckman pointed in the right direction that his specific method did not work. It is true that the WP file must be included. For me, the following work:

 include("../../../../wp-load.php"); require_once (dirname(dirname(dirname(dirname(dirname ( __FILE__))))).'/wp-load.php'); 

Both, as you can imagine, are equal - but the problem remains: some of them Hardcoded (for example, @Salman A) suggested - what if changes in the plugin change? what is the solution in this case?

Please note that both wp-load.php and wp-config.php worked for me. I do not know which is better or might pose some security issues.

but I think this is for another question.

Bottom line: this solution is only TEMP until I find the correct answer. My plugin is loaded through the WORDPRESS plugin mechanism (enqueue_script () / register_script () / init (), etc.) - and therefore I cannot understand why it does this. Boo now works as described above.

Answer 1

Being that it is included as JavaScript, your file.js.php must reference the Wordpress library in order to access these constants. Currently, since your code is standing, it does not have references to these constants.

__FILE__ does not require access to anything from Wordpress, so it works as expected.

You will need to add a few require or include statements that reference specific PHP Wordpress files that you need at the top of file.js.php .

Edit

To access these constants, use the following at the top of the file.js.php file:

 $home_dir = preg_replace('^wp-content/plugins/[a-z0-9\-/]+^', '', getcwd()); include($home_dir . 'wp-load.php'); 

A source