twinedev,
Thanks for the reply.
I figured that the include was processing the file and just echoing the contents out would not be the same but I was hoping that there might be another way to do it besides using eval.
I have used it in JavaScript but quite sparingly and only when the alternative was even worse.
I would not want to run this whole file through such a process, as you say, it isn't exactly the most efficiency process around.
Well, I think I'll put the issue on a back burner and see what pops up after it has been simmering for a while.
Ah, I thought of something earlier but did not have time to check on it - is there a way to tell the server software to process SSIs in a .php file? And, would it happen if I echoed the file contents instead of including it.
Most of the includes I'm looking at are SSIs in non PHP files - they create the page layout I'm using across the site (in the new version I'm working on). In the PHP files I've created so far, I've inserted PHP includes to do the same thing as the SSIs in the .shtml files. If I could get the server to handle the SSIs when I echo the contents of a file out, it would solve my problem - pretty much solve it, anyway.
I know there's an entry in the .htaccess file that might do it and I read about some sort of twick where you could get the sever to handle SSIs if you set the file permission correctly, I seem to think it was setting the file as executable.
One last thing, I have the free Abyss server installed on my system to allow me to test without having to upload to a server. I installed PHP support and everything works just fine - excerpt for reCAPTCHA validation - but I'm going to dump that anyway -- just too much of a burden on visitors. I've going to try a few other ways to weed out the spam.
I highly recommend the Abyss server with PHP support installed as a testbed for PHP code.
http://www.aprelium.com/
Bob
Oh, here goes, I've got to enter that damn CAPTCHA