global variables headache

Hey all, I'm fairly new to PHP (heck, to programming heh), so my hopes is that this problem of mine is an easy one to solve. I also don't know how classic this question is, but I think it must be something that most come across at some point. I'm caught in the trap that is PHPs local variables. I have failed to globalize anything thus far, despite looking in the manual, google, and talking to a codemonkey-friend. I think an example will show what wall I'm hitting: <? require( "include.inc" ); echo( $var ); ?> and the include.inc file has: <? $var = "whatever"; ?> So I'm not defining the variable within a function, in which the scope apparently keeps everything localized (a good thing as far as I can tell). I just thought variables defined outside a function were in the safe, but I guess not.. Kinda obviously this is not a copy-paste of my actual project :), but if I can just get that to work I'll be able to move all of my color-definitions to a seperate file and control things from there. I do, though, have a history full of odd routes I've taken to get things working, forgetting the valuable KISS rule in the process heh. If this is the case here I welcome advise on how else to deal with defining colors from a central page. With regards Jon Lauridsen mail@jonlauridsen.com