The Include Eludes

Hey all, I must admit this include() has me stumped, I have previously always used require() until I read the heated discussions on this list about this subject I decided to change my evil ways :-) my problem is that no matter what I set my include path to in php.ini php scripts cannot find the files (and yes I restarted apache each time). I have tried paths like: .:./inc:/usr/local/apache/htdocs/include I have also tried absolute paths in the scripts: include("/home/somedir/public_html/inc/somefile.php"); // Does not work or maybe a relative path include("inc/somefile.php"); // As above This is really driving me crazy as this should be the simplest thing to get working! What am i doing wrong? Am I now totally insane? Please help Regards Joseph