Determining Plugin and Content Directories
Topics
When coding WordPress plugins you often need to reference various files and folders throughout the WordPress installation and within your plugin or theme.
WordPress provides several functions for easily determining where a given file or directory lives. Always use these functions in your plugins instead of hard-coding references to the wp-content directory or using the WordPress internal constants.
PHP’s __FILE__ magic-constant resolves symlinks automatically, so if the wp-content or wp-content/plugins or even the individual plugin directory is symlinked, hardcoded paths will not work correctly.
Common Usage Common Usage
If your plugin includes JavaScript files, CSS files or other external files, then it’s likely you’ll need the URL to these files so you can load them into the page. To do this you should use the plugins_url() function like so:
plugins_url( 'myscript.js', _FILE_ );
This will return the full URL to myscript.js, such as example.com/wp-content/plugins/myplugin/myscript.js.
To load your plugins’ JavaScript or CSS into the page you should use wp_enqueue_script() or wp_enqueue_style() respectively, passing the result of plugins_url() as the file URL.
Available Functions Available Functions
WordPress includes many other functions for determining paths and URLs to files or directories within plugins, themes, and WordPress itself. See the individual Codex pages for each function for complete information on their use.
Plugins Plugins
plugins_url()
plugin_dir_url()
plugin_dir_path()
plugin_basename()
Themes Themes
get_template_directory_uri()
get_stylesheet_directory_uri()
get_stylesheet_uri()
get_theme_root_uri()
get_theme_root()
get_theme_roots()
get_stylesheet_directory()
get_template_directory()
Site Home Site Home
home_url()
get_home_path()
WordPress WordPress
admin_url()
site_url()
content_url()
includes_url()
wp_upload_dir()
Multisite Multisite
get_admin_url()
get_home_url()
get_site_url()
network_admin_url()
network_site_url()
network_home_url()
Constants Constants
WordPress makes use of the following constants when determining the path to the content and plugin directories. These should not be used directly by plugins or themes, but are listed here for completeness.
WP_CONTENT_DIR // no trailing slash, full paths only
WP_CONTENT_URL // full url
WP_PLUGIN_DIR // full path, no trailing slash
WP_PLUGIN_URL // full url, no trailing slash
// Available per default in MS, not set in single site install
// Can be used in single site installs (as usual: at your own risk)
UPLOADS // (If set, uploads folder, relative to ABSPATH) (for e.g.: /wp-content/uploads)
Related Related
WordPress Directories:
| WordPress Directories: | ||
|---|---|---|
| home_url() | Home URL | http://www.example.com |
| site_url() | Site directory URL | http://www.example.com or http://www.example.com/wordpress |
| admin_url() | Admin directory URL | http://www.example.com/wp-admin |
| includes_url() | Includes directory URL | http://www.example.com/wp-includes |
| content_url() | Content directory URL | http://www.example.com/wp-content |
| plugins_url() | Plugins directory URL | http://www.example.com/wp-content/plugins | wp_upload_dir() | Upload directory URL (returns an array) | http://www.example.com/wp-content/uploads |