What are the best practices for organizing and accessing external files in a PHP project to avoid complications?

When organizing and accessing external files in a PHP project, it is important to follow best practices to avoid complications. One approach is to create a dedicated directory for external files, such as images, stylesheets, or scripts, and use relative paths to access them. This helps keep your project organized and makes it easier to manage and update files as needed.

// Define the base directory for external files
$externalDir = 'external/';

// Access an image file using a relative path
$imagePath = $externalDir . 'images/example.jpg';

// Include an external PHP file using a relative path
include $externalDir . 'scripts/example.php';

// Link to an external stylesheet using a relative path
echo '<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="' . $externalDir . 'styles/example.css">';