Constants
From Joomla! Documentation
These constants are defined for use in Joomla and extensions:-
| JPATH_ADMINISTRATOR | The path to the administrator folder. |
| JPATH_BASE | The path to the installed Joomla! site, or JPATH_ROOT/administrator if executed from the backend. |
| JPATH_CACHE | The path to the cache folder. |
| JPATH_COMPONENT | The path to the current component being executed. |
| JPATH_COMPONENT_ADMINISTRATOR | The path to the administration folder of the current component being executed. |
| JPATH_COMPONENT_SITE | The path to the site folder of the current component being executed. |
| JPATH_CONFIGURATION | The path to folder containing the configuration.php file. |
| JPATH_INSTALLATION | The path to the installation folder. |
| JPATH_LIBRARIES | The path to the libraries folder. |
| JPATH_PLUGINS | The path to the plugins folder. |
| JPATH_ROOT | The path to the installed Joomla! site. |
| JPATH_SITE | The path to the installed Joomla! site. |
| JPATH_THEMES | The path to the templates folder. |
| JPATH_XMLRPC | The path to the XML-RPC Web service folder.(1.5 only) |
These constants are defined in _path_/includes/defines.php except JPATH_BASE which is defined in _path_/index.php.
Note: These paths are the absolute paths of these locations within the file system, NOT the path you'd use in a URL.
For URL paths, try using JURI::base().
Difference between JPATH_SITE, JPATH_ROOT, and JPATH_BASE[edit]
JPATH_SITE is meant to represent the root path of the JSite application, just as JPATH_ADMINISTRATOR is mean to represent the root path of the JAdministrator application.
JPATH_BASE is the root path for the current requested application.... so if you are in the administrator application:
- JPATH_BASE == JPATH_ADMINISTRATOR
If you are in the site application:
- JPATH_BASE == JPATH_SITE
If you are in the installation application:
- JPATH_BASE == JPATH_INSTALLATION.
JPATH_ROOT is the root path for the Joomla install and does not depend upon any application.
Consideration[edit]
Whilst using JPATH_COMPONENT and JPATH_COMPONENT_ADMINISTRATOR is highly useful in some cases, it has one big disadvantage: it immediately breaks all attempts to reuse the model from another component. That's something to keep in mind.