What is the best way to get directory path for wp-config.php?

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I am developer of the plugin mapsmarker.com which also offers several APIs which can be accessed directly (eg www.mapsmarker.com/wp-content/plugins/leaflet-maps-marker/leaflet-geojson.php?marker=1)
For these APIs I initially wrote the absolut directory path to a file with the following function on plugin install:

file_put_contents(dirname(__FILE__).'/leaflet-wp-path.php', '<?php define(\'WP_PATH\',\''.ABSPATH.'\'); ?>');

In the API-files, the file leaflet-wp-path.php the got included by the following code:

include_once(dirname($_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME']).'/leaflet-wp-path.php');
include_once(WP_PATH.'wp-config.php');
include_once(WP_PATH.'wp-includes/wp-db.php');
global $wpdb;
...

I then noticed that on some hosting providers these kind of operation is not supported, causing the plugin install to fail.
Therefore I switched to another method for determing the directory-path to wp-config.php:

//info: construct path to wp-config.php with fallback for subdirectory installations
$wp_path = $_SERVER["DOCUMENT_ROOT"]; 
if ( file_exists($wp_path . '/wp-config.php') ) {
    include_once($wp_path.'/wp-config.php');
    include_once($wp_path.'/wp-includes/wp-db.php');
} else { 
    $wp_plugin_path_modified = explode(DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR, dirname(__FILE__),-3);
    $wp_path = implode(DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR, $wp_plugin_path_modified);
    include_once($wp_path.'/wp-config.php');
    include_once($wp_path.'/wp-includes/wp-db.php');
} 
if ( !file_exists($wp_path . '/wp-config.php') ) {
    echo __('Error: Could not construct path to wp-config.php - please check <a     href="http://mapsmarker.com/path-error">http://mapsmarker.com/path-error</a> for more details.','lmm') . '<br/>Path on your webhost: ' . $wp_path;
} else {
...

This worked fine even on hosts that don´t allow the function file_put_contents() because the directory path is
determined from the current dirname of the API-File.

Now I got a bug report from a user, telling me that this method doesnt work on his host. He writes:

This is the example of the one of icon link. Looks entire plugin links are not correct. Only one thing is working now, it is admin panel configuration. Also it is making markers, but not showing in browsers.

On Windows Web Host
http://XXXXX/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/D:/Hosting/5465771/html/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/leaflet-maps-marker/img/logo-mapsmarker.png

On Linux Web Host
http://XXXXX/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/D:/inetpub/vhosts/XXXXX/httpdocs/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/leaflet-maps-marker/img/logo-mapsmarker.png

Does anyone know a better method for determing the directory path to wp-config.php to support this kind of hosting configuration?

5 s
5

I came up with this solution.

This function checks in each directory level starting from the directory of the current file for the file wp-config.php. 

<?php
    function find_wp_config_path() {
        $dir = dirname(__FILE__);
        do {
            if( file_exists($dir."/wp-config.php") ) {
                return $dir;
            }
        } while( $dir = realpath("$dir/..") );
        return null;
    }
?>

To actually include the file you can use this:

if ( ! function_exists('add_action') ) {
    include_once( find_wp_config_path()  . '/wp-load.php' );
}

This can also be found here:
How to determine wordpress base path when wordpress core is not loaded

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