Local to Global Variables

Not 100% DB related but soon I am processing a text file by looking for strings which later depending on the findings will be submitted to db my problems is that in one if statemant I find a piece of text and need another statment to use it later, but it seems that the variable declared to the found string remains local. Is there a way to set variables from within functions/if statements so they become available to all. Thnaks in advance R>