PHP Include
Include takes a file name and simply inserts that file's contents into the script that issued the include command.
An Include Example
Say we wanted to create a common menu file that all our pages will use. A common practice for naming files that are to be included is to use the ".php" extension. Since we want to create a common menu let's save it as "menu.php".
menu.php Code:<html> <body> <ahref="http://www.example.com/index.php">Home</a> - <a href="http://www.example.com/about.php">About Us</a> - <ahref="http://www.example.com/links.php">Links</a> - <a href="http://www.example.com/contact.php">Contact Us</a><br />
Save the above file as "menu.php". Now create a new file, "index.php" in the same directory as "menu.php". Here we will take advantage of the include command to add our common menu.
index.php Code:<?php include("menu.php"); ?>
<p>This is my home page that uses a common menu to save me time when I add
new pages to my website!</p>
</body>
</html>
And we would do the same thing for "about.php", "links.php", and "contact.php". Just think how terrible it would be if you had 15 or more pages with a common menu and you decided to add another web page to that site. You would have to go in and manually edit every single file to add this new page, but with include files you simply have to change "menu.php" and all your problems are solved. Avoid such troublesome occasions with a simple include file.