plugin error problems

[edward hamilton]

I'm trying to use a plugin to call a variable, output as an echo statement, from another page chattest.php that returns the number of chat users in Flashchat.
The output chattest.php is the number of chat users and displays only an integer on the page when URL/forums/chat/chattest.php is parsed directly

My plugin

PHP Code:

ob_start();
  include('/chat/test.php');
 $chatuser  = ob_get_contents();
ob_end_clean(); 


yields a blank white page on the forums when the plugin is active.
Any ideas?
I tried defining $GLOBALS['chatuser'] in chattest.php and then calling that variable in the plugin but it seems global.php clears all global variable for security.

PHP Code:

//plugin 
$chatuser = $GLOBALS['chatuser']
//didn't work 


I used hook Location global_start on all plugins. I'm running vB 3.8.3 and PHP 4

[Marco van Herwaarden]

Is the file included at all, i doubt it will work with a leading slash.