Safe alternatives to PHP Globals (Good Coding Practices)

Question

For years I have used global $var,$var2,...,$varn for methods in my application. I\'ve used them for two main implementations:

Getting an already set cl

Answer 1

function showPage(&$output, $db = null){
     $db = is_null( $db )  ? new Database() : $db;
     $output['header']['title'] = $db->getConfig( 'siteTitle' );
     require( 'myHTMLPage.html' );
     exit();
}

and

$output['header']['log_out'] = "Log Out";
showPage($output);

 $db =new Database();
showPage($output,$db);