How to change the directory of file_create_url to default for a custom domain

Question

Suppose, we have a file: /sites/default/files/picture.jpg

Drupal is installed into a subdirectory: /drupal. There are 2 domains, attached to the site:

1. exchange

2. exchange-test (uses different DB)

---

 | domain        | settings.php path     |
 |---------------+-----------------------+
 | exchange      | /sites/default/       |
 | exchange-test | /sites/exchange-test/ |

When we call

print file_create_url('public://picture.jpg');

we get:

| site          | result                                        |
|---------------+-----------------------------------------------|
| exchange      | /drupal/sites/default/files/picture.jpg       |
| exchange-test | /drupal/sites/exchange-test/files/picture.jpg |

But the file is stored in default directory even for exchange-test domain.

As far as I could find, the path is being generated, using function conf_path. It scans the config directory to find a subdir with current domain name:

 $server = explode('.', implode('.', array_reverse(explode(':', rtrim($_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'], '.')))));
  for ($i = count($uri) - 1; $i > 0; $i--) {
    for ($j = count($server); $j > 0; $j--) {
      $dir = implode('.', array_slice($server, -$j)) . 
             implode('.', array_slice($uri, 0, $i));
      if (isset($sites[$dir]) && 
          file_exists(DRUPAL_ROOT . '/' . $confdir . '/' . $sites[$dir])) {
            $dir = $sites[$dir];
      }
      if (file_exists(DRUPAL_ROOT . '/' . $confdir . '/' . $dir . '/settings.php') || 
         (!$require_settings && file_exists(DRUPAL_ROOT . '/' . $confdir . '/' . $dir))) {
            $conf = "$confdir/$dir";
            return $conf;
      }
    }
  }

If found, it uses this directory as files path.

So, one way is to temporarily change $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']:

$_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] = 'exchange';
print file_create_url('public://picture.jpg');
$_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] = 'exchange-test';

Will give the correct result. But this trick seems clumsy to me. Is there any way to get the default directory without such hacks?

Answer 1

try setting the public file system path in your -test site to match that of the other in /admin/config/media/file-system