I have a special page that I'm writing that uses a common php file that I used in an extension I previously developed. Since I want these two to be independent, I have the common file in each of the extension directories.

I use require_once() to load the file (it's not a class but a few functions) but, since the two files are in two different directories, the require_once() doesn't detect that it's already loaded (it checks both path and file to determine a match). Hence, I get a redefinition error.

Since it's not a class, I don't use $wgAutoloadClasses. I'm avoiding making the functions part of an otherwise empty class, since I don't want to use the class::function() syntax. I could put them in a class file that contains an empty class and instantiate it just to load the file, but I was wondering if there is another, commonly accepted way to avoid this problem?

Mike