note 70998 deleted from language.variables.scope by danbrown

Note Submitter: Michael ---- davo971 (http://us2.php.net/manual/en/language.variables.scope.php#69765), it seems you're encountering the same mental block that jason (http://us2.php.net/manual/en/language.variables.scope.php#65337) was having. I know how that goes, because I used to have this problem as well. Don't think of permission to access a variable as being transferred from function to function. There is exactly 1 global scope in any script, and that's the scope outside of all functions and classes. If you specify a variable as global, it does not mean you are accessing a variable in the calling function's namespace, it means you are accessing the variable in the global namespace. In your example, you seemed to think that declaring $new_var global in function2() would give it access to variables declared in function1()'s namespace. In fact, acess to variables does not propagate up the function stack--declaring you wish to work on a global variable ALWAYS gives you access to the SINGLE variable declared in the global namespace with that name. It's more easily understood when you work with the $GLOBALS array... there's only 1 such array, and consequently there's exactly 1 of each global variable. So if we modify your example to work correctly, here's what it'll look like: <?php $var = 'foo'; $new_var = 'asdf'; function function1() { global $new_var; //Now working with global $new_var, declared above $new_var = 'bar'; //Changing $new_var from 'asdf' to 'bar' function2(); } function function2() { global $var, $new_var; //Accessing global variables $var and $new_var, declared outside any functions echo($var . $new_var); } function1(); ?> Outputs foobar