require doesn't work in a module's file

Question

I have this module's inc file, which hold page callback functions. Also I have a 'config.php' file that hold the parameters. I know this is not a good practice, but I would like to leave these config there for now.

Here is the question, I cannot get access to the parameters in the config.php file after I used require 'config.php' or require_once 'config.php'.

e.g. I have admin.inc which holds these:

<?php
    require 'config.php';
    
    function my_page_callback(){
        global $config;

        var_dump($config); //this prints NULL when I access this menu item.
    }

    

and config.php holds these an located in the same folder:

<?php

    $config = array();
    $config['key'] = 'value';
    $config['name'] = 'foobar';

The file is successfully included since there is no fatal error, but why can't I get these values?

update

var_dump($config); this would print the right content after I move the require statement to the body of my_page_callback, but I don't think this is how PHP works.

Explicitly set $config as global in the required file could give non-NULL result, but it is not needed in my test files.

Answer 1

I'd comment on sceo's answer, but I can't yet.

More information on declaring it as global $var: https://www.drupal.org/node/633230#comment-2267370

But as is recommended here, in the link and everywhere really, if you want globals use variable_set and variable_get (or use constants? You can serialize the array, as constants before PHP 5.6 can't accept arrays).

You can also make a function in your module file that simply returns the array you want to use. Not sure how correct or efficient that is, but it does work.

function mymodule_get_config() {
    return array(
      'key' => 'value'
    );
}

Answer 2

You can use this approach to include a file in .module

function module_name_init(){
    module_load_include('inc', 'module_name', 'includes/common');
}

and place common.inc file in includes folder in your custom module.Now write your php code here.

Answer 3

Agree that this is bad practice and you should be setting these values using variable_set and variable_get, or with a module config form.

However, it should work the way you have it with the exception that you will need to 'global $config' in the config.php file AND then again in my_page_callback().

You would do better to rename $config to something more specific, so you don't have collisions with anything else in the global scope, so change $config in config.php to something like $my_module_config or something.