RE: [Phpmyadmin-devel] header.inc.php3 safty net

No. Global variables defined in header.inc.php3 *will* be visible outside of braces if __HEADER_INC__ is defined. I made the test and that behaviour did not change through php versions. For more information, consult that page about variables scope in php : http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.variables.scope.php Note that if __HEADER_INC__ is not defined, the content of header.inc.php3 will be included but not parsed. That's why things will be as if it had not been required. As far as I'm concerned, I would really prefer putting the if (!defined('__HEADER_INC__')) directly inside header.inc.php3 as when coding in C or C++. I find it quite a hell to always put such an if each time header.inc.php3 has to be required (and what if we change __HEADER_INC__ in HEADER_INC or whatever?). With a single 'if' in header.inc.php3 the final result will be exactly the same.