Extra subdirectory folder automatically appears in link

Question

rusty813 0 Newbie Poster

15 Years Ago

I have a problem with my links getting added a extra subdirectory found to it when that link doesnt even exist I have tried everything possible, such as ../ to specifying to exact folder location within the links

Here what are the correct links are:
http://localhost/xampp/website/newsletter.php
http://localhost/xampp/website/admin/login.php

When I click on the login link to goto "http://localhost/xampp/website/admin/login.php"
the links are wrong by adding /admin to newsletter.php and an extra /admin to login.php:
http://localhost/xampp/website/admin/newsletter.php
http://localhost/xampp/website/admin/admin/login.php

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<?php
  session_start();

  $connect = mysql_connect('localhost', 'root', '') or die(mysql_error()); 
  $db = mysql_select_db('blog', $connect); 
   
  $session_name = isset($_SESSION['user_id']) ? $_SESSION['user_id'] : 0; 
?>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>Home - </title>
<link href="css/styles.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
<link href="../css/styles.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
</head>

<body>
  <table border="0" cellspacing="5" cellpadding="3" align="center" width="1024">
    <tr>
	  <td id="header" align="center" valign="top">
	    <h1>Header here</h1>
	  </td>
	</tr>
	
	<tr>
	  <td id="navigation" align="center">
        <ul>    
          <li><a href="">Home</a></li> |  
          <li><a href="">Newsletter</a></li> |
          <li><a href="">Deans Column</a></li> |
          <li><a href="">Photos</a></li> |
          <li><a href="">Jobs</a></li> |
          <li><a href="">Interships</a></li> |
	      <li><a href="">scholarships</a></li> |
          <li><a href="">About Us</a></li> |
          <li><a href="">Contact Us</a></li>
        <ul>
	  </td>
	</tr>
	
	<tr>
	  <td id="admin" align="center">
	    <?php
		if ($session_name) {
		  echo "<a href=\"newsletter.php\">Newsletter </a>\n";
		  echo "<a href=\"admin/add.user.php\">Add Admin </a>\n";
		  echo "<a href=\"admin/logout.php\">Logut </a><br>\n";
		} else {
		  echo "<a href=\"newsletter.php\">Newsletter </a>\n ";
		  echo "<a href=\"admin/login.php\">Login </a>\n";
		}  
	    ?>           
	  </td>
	</tr>
	
	<tr>
	  <td id="content">

html-css php

4 Contributors
12 Replies
180 Views
1 Day Discussion Span
Latest Post 15 Years Ago Latest Post by almostbob

Dani AI

Generated 6 Months Ago

The behaviour is not a bug in PHP — it’s how browsers resolve relative URLs. A link like href="newsletter.php" is resolved relative to the current page’s URL, not the file that emitted the HTML. When you load a page under /admin/ the browser will turn newsletter.php into /admin/newsletter.php. That explains why your header links suddenly gain an extra /admin once you open the admin page.

Three practical fixes (pick one):

Make all navigation links root‑relative to your project (so they don’t depend on the current folder). If your project lives at /xampp/website use links that start there: href="/xampp/website/path".
Put a single base URL in the document head so every relative link resolves from the same place:
```

<base href="http://localhost/xampp/website/">
```
Note: <base> affects every relative URL (images, forms, scripts) — test carefully.

Generate URLs from one central PHP value so included headers always emit absolute paths. Example config + helper:

// config.php (include everywhere)
define('PROJECT_ROOT', '/xampp/website'); // root-relative path from localhost
function site_url($path = '') {
  return rtrim(PROJECT_ROOT, '/') . '/' . ltrim($path, '/');
}

// usage in header
echo '<a href="' . site_url('newsletter.php') . '">Newsletter</a>';
echo '<a href="' . site_url('admin/login.php') . '">Login</a>';

Quick troubleshooting steps: view-source / Inspect Element to see the computed href; right‑click → copy link address; temporarily hardcode a full URL to confirm it works; check for an accidental <base> tag or rewrite rules. As suggested, centralising the site URL avoids this class of bugs; and ’s virtual‑host suggestion is worth doing long‑term so your site can live at / instead of /xampp/website.

All 12 Replies

Member #120589

15 Years Ago

either use the full url or use an aboslute (/ at the beginning).

vibhaJ 126 Master Poster

15 Years Ago

is this page outside of admin folder?

Member #120589

15 Years Ago

SO you're saying that:

echo "<a href=\"/newsletter.php\">Newsletter </a>\n";
 echo "<a href=\"/admin/add.user.php\">Add Admin </a>\n";
 echo "<a href=\"/admin/logout.php\">Logut </a><br>\n";
} else {
 echo "<a href=\"/newsletter.php\">Newsletter </a>\n ";
 echo "<a href=\"/admin/login.php\">Login </a>\n";

AND

echo "<a href=\"">Newsletter </a>\n";
 echo "<a href=\"">Add Admin </a>\n";
 echo "<a href=\"">Logut </a><br>\n";
} else {
 echo "<a href=\"">Newsletter </a>\n ";
 echo "<a href=\"">Login </a>\n";

Don't work?

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rusty813 0 Newbie Poster · Answer 1 · 2011-06-20T13:18:15+00:00

rusty813 0 Newbie Poster

15 Years Ago

yea i tried full url as well and / that doesnt work as well

Edited 15 Years Ago by rusty813 because: n/a

rusty813 0 Newbie Poster · Answer 2 · 2011-06-21T01:49:46+00:00

the only pages outside from the admin folder is newsletter.php, header, and footer.php

pages that are in the admin folder are index.php, login.php, and add.user.php

almostbob 866 Retired: passive income ROCKS · Answer 3 · 2011-06-21T02:33:17+00:00

almostbob 866 Retired: passive income ROCKS

15 Years Ago

href=\"./admin/login.php\">Login </a>\n"; ??

rusty813 0 Newbie Poster · Answer 4 · 2011-06-21T10:21:21+00:00

yes that is correct and i have even tried almostbob way as well

vibhaJ 126 Master Poster · Answer 5 · 2011-06-21T10:43:27+00:00

Have you tried as ardav said?

echo "<a href=\"">Newsletter </a>\n";
 echo "<a href=\"">Add Admin </a>\n";
 echo "<a href=\"">Logut </a><br>\n";
} else {
 echo "<a href=\"">Newsletter </a>\n ";
 echo "<a href=\"">Login </a>\n";

rusty813 0 Newbie Poster · Answer 6 · 2011-06-21T11:59:24+00:00

thats definitely not going to work cause its a website address, i am using a local server

vibhaJ 126 Master Poster · Answer 7 · 2011-06-21T12:03:42+00:00

definitely was just for example.

$siteurl = "http://localhost/xampp/website/";

if ($session_name) {
echo '<a href="'.$siteurl.'/newsletter.php">Newsletter </a>\n';
 echo '<a href="'.$siteurl.'/admin/add.user.php">Add Admin </a>\n';
 echo '<a href="'.$siteurl.'/admin/logout.php">Logut </a><br>\n';
} else {
 echo '<a href="'.$siteurl.'/newsletter.php">Newsletter </a>\n ';
 echo '<a href="'.$siteurl.'/admin/login.php">Login </a>\n';

Try above code.
and whenever you upload files to live don't forget to change $siteurl.

Member #120589 · Answer 8 · 2011-06-21T12:51:38+00:00

Have you set up a virtual host in C:\xampp\apache\conf\extra\httpd-vhosts.conf and C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts ?

almostbob 866 Retired: passive income ROCKS · Answer 9 · 2011-06-21T16:45:13+00:00

perhaps dumb, but what is the root setting on the wamp install?

Extra subdirectory folder automatically appears in link

Dani AI

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