What are some best practices for including external PHP scripts in a webpage?

When including external PHP scripts in a webpage, it is important to follow best practices to ensure security and maintainability. One common approach is to use the `include` or `require` functions in PHP to include the external script. It is recommended to use absolute paths for including files to avoid any path traversal vulnerabilities. Additionally, it is a good practice to sanitize user input and validate the included files to prevent any malicious code execution.

<?php
// Include external PHP script using absolute path
include '/path/to/external/script.php';
?>