In what scenarios would including external PHP files be beneficial for passing data between different parts of a PHP application?

Including external PHP files can be beneficial for passing data between different parts of a PHP application when you need to share variables, functions, or classes across multiple files. This can help in organizing your code, reducing redundancy, and promoting code reusability. By including external files, you can easily access shared data without having to redefine them in each file.

// File: shared_data.php
$sharedVariable = "Hello, World!";

// File: file1.php
include 'shared_data.php';
echo $sharedVariable;

// File: file2.php
include 'shared_data.php';
echo $sharedVariable;