In general, you should only use .htaccess files when you don't have access to the main server configuration file.

This is on shared hosting so I don't have access to the server configuration file!

That's no reason to stop reading.

Depending on how your shared hosting is set up, there may still be a way to place files outside the reach of the webserver. My shared hoster gives me some filespace somewhere on a unix system, and has a configuration panel that allows to assign any directory of that filespace to any domain hosted there. So I made a few subdirectories and used a subdirectory per domain. Other subdirectories are still unassigned, can not be accessed via HTTP, and thus are perfect for libraries and configuration files.

Alexander

--
Today I will gladly share my knowledge and experience, for there are no sweeter words than "I told you so". ;-)

In reply to Re^7: Using relative paths with taint mode by afoken
in thread Using relative paths with taint mode by Bod

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