What are some best practices for handling file paths in PHP to ensure consistent behavior across different environments?

When working with file paths in PHP, it's important to use built-in functions like `realpath()` to ensure consistent behavior across different environments. This function resolves any symbolic links and provides the absolute path to the file or directory. By using `realpath()`, you can avoid issues related to relative paths and ensure that your code works correctly regardless of the environment it's running in. 

$file_path = '/path/to/file.txt';
$absolute_path = realpath($file_path);

if ($absolute_path) {
    // Proceed with using the absolute path
    echo "Absolute path: " . $absolute_path;
} else {
    // Handle error, such as file not found
    echo "Error: File not found";
}

Keywords

file paths PHP consistent behavior different environments handling

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