Circular Includes/Requires

[Anon]

How do I avoid circular includes in PHP? ie. file a includes file b which includes file c, then file a includes file c, and stuff in c is declared twice. eg.

a:
include (b)
include (c)

b:
include (c)

c gets included twice!

I thought require would fix this, but it doesn't seem to work. Do I have to do the whole #ifndef thing like in C?

Thanks

[Anon]

Although you don't have #ifdef like you do in C/C++, you do have the ability to set global variables. For instance,

in file a:
include (b)
-- check for INCLUDED_B to be set to true
-- if not, declare INCLUDED_B as set to true, and include
-- if it was previously set, ignore the file
include (c)
-- same as above, but use INCLUDED_C

in file b:
include (c)
-- same as above for include (c)

This should solve some of your problems.

Another possibility would be to make a standard include or require file that includes/requires all of the files you need -- then all of you files require it ... same checking:
if (isset($X))

Hope that helps.

--anthony