How to Access Variables from External PHP Files and Avoid Overwriting?

Accessing Variables from External PHP Files

In PHP, you can retrieve the value of a variable stored in a separate PHP file by employing the include or require statements. However, if the same variable name is declared in multiple included files, the value assigned in the last included file will overwrite the values defined earlier.

Example:

Consider the following example:

page1.php:

<code class="php">$var1 = 'page1';</code>

page2.php:

<code class="php">$var1 = 'page2';</code>

footer.php:

<code class="php"><a href="">$var1 from page1</a><br>
<a href="">$var1 from page2</a></code>

Solution:

To access the variable $var1 in footer.php, you can use the following approach:

myfile.php:

<code class="php">$var1 = 'test';
include 'mysecondfile.php';
echo $var1; // Output: tester</code>

mysecondfile.php:

<code class="php">$var1 = 'tester';</code>

Explanation:

By including mysecondfile.php, the value of $var1 in myfile.php will be overwritten with the value assigned in mysecondfile.php. This allows you to access the updated value of $var1 in myfile.php.

Alternative:

To avoid overwriting variables, it's advisable to use different variable names for each PHP file. This ensures that the variables remain independent and can be retrieved as needed.

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