include variable not working (simple question)

iBuddy

Everytime I change the include to the full url path "http://www.domain.com/directory/page.php" it wont work, why not? Do I need to make this a global variable or something?

I am trying to have 10 sites pull the same data so I want to include a variable from 1 site to 10. Think of a on/off switch. If I just leave it as "page.php" it works. However, when I change to the full url path it does not work and it has to be the full url because its not on the same domain name.

page.php

$status = 1;

Here is the code I put on top of my page:

include("page.php");
echo $status;
if ($status == 1) {
echo "off";
}else{
echo "on";
}

NogDog

Most likely, when you reference it via the http address, then it's being served by the target web server, so the file is being run through its local PHP parser. Therefore, all the calling script is receiving is the text (if any) that is output by the included file.

iBuddy

Ok...then what can I do to pass that variable? Im trying to make a on/off switch. So if I have a variable value 1 it will turn everything off. Anything else it will turn on.

Weedpacket

NogDog made a suggestion: put the value into the text that is output by the included file. Instead of using include(), use file_get_contents(), and then examine what it returns. Use a content-type header of text/plain for tidiness's sake. If you want to get fancy you could have it return a whole ini-file with all sorts of settings; and use parse_ini_file. Or if you want to get REALLY fancy, have it return it in XML.