cookie before header mystery

[nohurry]

Given the rule of thumb that cookie info should be sent before headers;

I have a query script that
require("connect.php");'s
for its connection information.

After the query is performed and the variables are declared with the returned values, I try to use one of those variables to set a cookie.

But, it keeps returning an error that the header info has already been sent by connect.php!

Now, if I incorporate the connection script directly into the query script, where the cookie is being set, it works just fine.

.....Why.....?

[nohurry]

After a small test, it seems as if the result is the same for any include(); file I apply to my query script.

Is there a way around this??

[nimbus]

make sure there are no spaces before the php-tag and - of course - no output of any kind to the client.