Preventing direct access to php files

Question

Here is an example of my file structure.

/index.php
/inc
/inc/file1.php
/inc/file2.php
/inc/file3.php
/search.php

index.php includes() file

Answer 1

Get them outside the document root:

/documentroot/index.php
/inc/file1.php
/inc/file2.php
/inc/file3.php

So, there is no direct access to them whatsoever.