Question

I have an index.php that loads bites of the page from other php files. At the top of the index.php I have all the require_once statements including the PHP class that handles the db connection and I also instantiate an object of that class:

<?php 
    require_once 'libs/DatabaseHandler.php';

    $dbh = new DatabaseHandler('localhost', 'root', '*******', 'pride2012');

    require_once 'pages/01_includes.php';
    require_once 'pages/02_menu.php';
    require_once 'pages/03_slider.php';
    require_once 'pages/04_news.php';   
?> 

The page-bit using the db managing class is 04_news.php, is it enough constructing the object before 04_news.php loads to make myself sure that the object exists before the database related operations start?

Answer 1

Defining the object prior to the operations is enough.

Alternatively, you can use the built-in __autoload( ) method to dynamically load classes as needed.

Take a look at PHP.net: Autoloading Classes for more information.