PHP: Need to pass variables/functions in a class function for printing layout header! How?

Question

I have a class Page() that I can use to print the (layout) header with.

With the function loadHeader($title) I want to be able to print it on all my pages. The actual code for the header is stored in header.inc.php.

Now before the header I also want certain variables (like one which maintains a database connection) to be passed along with it, so that I can pick it up on all my pages and work with it.

The class looks a bit like this (thined out to prevent a mess):

class Page{
    //All vars here
    function __construct(){
        //constructor code
    }
    function loadHeader(){
        $header = file_get_contents("header.inc.php");
        //Some editing of the parsed $header here

        //Here I want certain variables to be passed along 
        return $header;
    }
}

The exact code I want to get passed along with the function loadHeader() is:

session_start();
include("db.class.php"); //File which contains the db_class
$db = new db_class;
$db->connect();

Tried doing this with eval() and heredoc within the loadHeader() function but I can't seem to get this working. I'm desperate!

Finally to give you an example on how I want my pages to work:

<?php
    include("page.class.php");
    $page = new page("Friends");
    $page->loadHeader();
?>
Website content with database manipulation

Answer 1

Why don't you just put that code in the Page constructor?

Or make a generic singleton class which will hold your global data, configuration settings, etc?

Or simply add an auto_prepend with that configuration, so that it automatically is included in any page, and you can completely forget about it?