ASP style "application-level" variables

Hi, Apologies if this question has already been asked in the past, but I have only just registered for this list. Does PHP in anyway support ASP style application-level variables in a similair way to how standard sessions are used. Though of implementing this as either files or database records but the additional coding could be more error-prone or eat more system resources than using a feature built into PHP itself. I would be interested to hear other peoples views on this feature. Lee