Question

Is there a way to include a file outside of a function and have it work?

ie. I have a file db.inc.php, this contains my db connection string:

switch (DB_TYPE) {
case MYSQL :
    try {
        $DBH = new PDO("mysql:host=" . DB_HOST . ";dbname=" . DB_NAME . "", DB_USER, DB_PASS);
        $DBH -> setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE, PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION);
    } catch(PDOException $e) {
        echo "Error in Connection" . $e -> getMessage();
    }
}

Now I have require this file my in my functions file, functions.php:

require('db.inc.php')
function add() {

        $n = $DBH -> prepare("");
        $n -> execute((array)$s);
}

so the file is added in properly, but my function cannot access the $DBH handle. Only when I include the file in my function:

function add(){
require('db.inc.php')

....etc....

}

will my function work.

As I am going to have at least 4-5 functions in many files, any possibility of just requiring it outside the function and get the function to work?

Thank and regards

Answer 1

After including the file outside the function, you could declare the variable as global, but that’s really a bad way to do things. Instead, you should have the caller of the function pass handle as an argument. Failing that, you could create a factory for the database and call it within each function.

Why do you have to call the require outside the function?