Is there a way to prevent a user viewing an file but still use it as included to another file in PHP?
If you use
define('APP_RAN');
in the file that includes it and then put
if(!defined('APP_RAN')){ die(); }
or alternatively
defined('APP_RAN') or die();
(which is easier to read)
in included files it would die if you access them directly.
It would probably be better to put all of your included files above your DocumentRoot though.
For example, if your index page is at
/my/server/domain/public_html
You should put the included files in
/my/server/domain/