[templates] Get skin path in Magento?

I have a few custom PHP functions for my Magento store that I stored in myfunc.php and I need to require it from in a few different .phtml files. How do I do that?

I mean I can use an absolute path but that would be dirty and probably problematic when migrating to another server.

For now I'm stuck with:

require('/home/myuser/public_html/app/design/frontend/default/mytheme/myfunc.php');

How do I refer to the skin path ( /home/myuser/public_html/app/design/frontend/default/mytheme/ ) programmatically?

This question is related to templates magento

The answer is


To get current skin URL use this Mage::getDesign()->getSkinUrl()


First of all it is not recommended to have php files with functions in design folder. You should create a new module or extend (copy from core to local a helper and add function onto that class) and do not change files from app/code/core.

To answer to your question you can use:

require(Mage::getBaseDir('design').'/frontend/default/mytheme/myfunc.php');

Best practice (as a start) will be to create in /app/code/local/Mage/Core/Helper/Extra.php a php file:

<?php
class Mage_Core_Helper_Extra extends Mage_Core_Helper_Abstract
{

    public function getSomething()
    {
        return 'Someting';
    }

}

And to use it in phtml files use:

$this->helper('core/extra')->getSomething();

Or in all the places:

Mage::helper('core/extra')->getSomething();

To use it in phtml apply :

echo $this->getSkinUrl('your_image_folder_under_skin/image_name.png');

To use skin path in cms page :

<img style="width: 715px; height: 266px;" src="{{skin url=images/banner1.jpg}}" alt="title" />

This part====> {{skin url=images/banner1.jpg}}

I hope this will help you.


To get that file use the below code.

include(Mage::getBaseDir('skin').'myfunc.php');

But it is not a correct way. To add your custom functions you can use the below file.

app/code/core/Mage/core/functions.php

Kindly avoid to use the PHP function under skin dir.


First note that

Mage::getBaseDir('skin')

returns only path to skin directory of your Magento install (/your/magento/dir/skin).

You can access absolute path to currently used skin directory using:

Mage::getDesign()->getSkinBaseDir()

This method accepts an associative array as optional parameter to modify result.

Following keys are recognized:

  • _area frontend (default) or adminhtml
  • _package your package
  • _theme your theme
  • _relative when this is set (as an key) path relative to Mage::getBaseDir('skin') is returned.

So in your case correct answer would be:

require(Mage::getDesign()->getSkinBaseDir().DS.'myfunc.php');