Get WordPress Child Theme Path in WordPress

I have a parent and child theme. In my child theme I declared a variable CHILD_DIR so I can add custom JS and CSS files to the my child theme’s folder structure. I did this in my functions.php file in my child theme by doing this:

define( 'CHILD_DIR', get_stylesheet_directory_uri() );

This produces a URL which is what I want since I’m using it like this:

wp_enqueue_script('custom', CHILD_DIR .'/custom.js', array( 'jquery' ));

I also added some additional folders to my child theme which I want to use within a WordPress page. I tried to do something like this:

require_once CHILD_DIR . '/Zend/Loader.php';

I get an error since it’s trying to provide a URL and I want a menu path to include the PHP and not try and make it an HTTP request. How can I define a path for the PHP instead of a URL to default to my child theme?

Answer

It’s almost the same functions:

• Parent theme: get_template_directory()
• Parent theme or child theme: get_stylesheet_directory()