What are some best practices for ensuring smooth communication and variable sharing between included scripts in PHP?

To ensure smooth communication and variable sharing between included scripts in PHP, it is recommended to use functions to encapsulate logic and pass variables as parameters. This helps to avoid naming conflicts and maintain a clear flow of data between scripts. Additionally, using global variables sparingly and keeping variable scope in mind can also improve communication between included scripts.

// script1.php
function processData($data) {
    // process data here
}

// script2.php
include 'script1.php';

$data = "example data";
processData($data);