make a set of variables available to all visitors?

What would be the best way to make a set of variables available to all visitors? example: if I stick all variables in a separate file and include - include(settings.php); - that works fine. seems that this is a lot of overhead to include these on every page. These variables would never change (they basically turn an alpha string into numeric to speed up queries.) I don't think hard coding would be a great solution either... simplified example: one set of variables to be included on all pages refer to the article type - i would like to use urls that make sense to the visitor rather than number strings so - $article_type = array("news" => 1,"opinion" => 2,"finance" => 3); Maybe it would be best to simply query for WHERE article_type = 'news' etc. Thanks much, olinux __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - online filing with TurboTax http://taxes.yahoo.com/