That's great, thanks Ken! Am I right in saying that using external URLs is a bad idea anyway because it slows the processing down significantly? The includes folder is actually on the same level as the directory containing the script, so I got it working with: [code]<?php $ini_file = '../includes/site_config.ini'; $ini = parse_ini_file($ini_file, false); ?>[/code] I then developed that to the following to allow the code to work no matter what directory level it's placed at: [code]<?php $ini_file = $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].'/includes/site_config.ini'; $ini = parse_ini_file($ini_file, false); ?>[/code]