How to get the absolute path to the public_html folder?

Question

$_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']

returns

/usr/local/apache/htdocs/

is there a way to get

/home/user/public_html/

The problem is that I have to write a script which can be in the public_html folder or a sub-folder of the public_html folder. The script should save uploaded files into a folder inside public_html directory(say images). In other words let us say that my file is test.php and the path to it is

/home/user/public_html/test/test.php. 

And there is a folder

/home/user/public_html/images 

where files uploaded via test.php have to be saved. I don't know where the test.php file will be run. For example it can be at the path

/home/user/public_html/test/another-dir/test.php

How do I get the path to the images folder without knowing where the test.php file will be?

Answer 1

something I found today, after reading this question and continuing on my googlesurf:

https://docs.joomla.org/How_to_find_your_absolute_path

<?php
$path = getcwd();
echo "This Is Your Absolute Path: ";
echo $path;
?>

works for me