Prevent direct access to a php include file

Question

I have a php file which I will be using as exclusively as an include. Therefore I would like to throw an error instead of executing it when it\'s accessed directly by typing

Answer 1

I had this problem once, solved with:

if (strpos($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], basename(__FILE__)) !== false) ...

but the ideal solution is to place the file outside of the web-server document root, as mentioned in another anwser.