php parsing and db content

Greetings All, I have the following problem. I load certain links and breadcrumbs from the database into a external .php file which I include on various pages within the site. Due to this I have defined a constant '_root' and precede all links with this to ensure that the links will work no matter from where inside the site structure they are called. My problem is this, when I load these links from the database into the external .php file and the load the page that includes this, the line <?php echo _root ?> is not parsed and shows up in the links, for example: /our_work/<?php echo _root ?>/our_work/index.php when it should be /site_root/our_work/index.php How can I ensure that these calls to <?php echo _root ?> are parsed before sent to the browser? Thanks! -- Kind Regards Schalk Neethling Web Developer.Designer.Programmer.President Volume4.Business.Solution.Developers