Use Require_once() to include database connection variables correctly
php, require-once, scope
Solution
The variables you declare in `db_login.php` are globals. In order to access them in your function, you need to use the `$GLOBALS` variable, e.g. `$GLOBALS['db_server']`, or declare them as global inside your function using the `global` keyword, e.g. `global $db_server`.
Problem
I'm a php newbie (but long time developer in other languages) and I'm trying some example db connections in "PHP, MySQL, & JavaScript". It shows an example file to include db connection variables (servername, username, password, database, etc.). I have a php file which has a handful of functions I wrote and one of them has a few SQL queries. For whatever reason, calling require_once in that file doesn't output any errors (I have E_ALL config'd) yet those variables in my database php file are null. I called an echo with all the variables within that function to see what the heck is going on and of course it prints a blank line. What in the world is out of scope? I have to be missing something simple. Here's an example of what I'm doing db_login.php ``` <?php $db_server = 'localhost'; // .... ?> ``` functions.php ``` <?php require_once('db_login.php'); function myfunction() { echo "$db_server"; // ... } ?> ``` Call me crazy, but shouldn't this be simple enough to work?