transferring variable / hiding php-file

I would like to do this

html/file1.php
cgi-bin/file2.php


it is called:
file1.php$c1=something

file1.php is:
<?
include "/cgi-bin/file2.php?c1=$c1"
?>


But it gives:
Warning: main(/cgi-bin/file2.php?c1=1234): failed to open stream: No such
file or directory

Seems its looking for file "/cgi-bin/file2.php?c1=1234", instead of calling
file /cgi-bin/file2.php with variable c1=1234

What am I doing wrong?


What I'm trying to do, at the moment there is just one .php file,
html/file1.php which includes sql-password.

So instead of file1.php (with sql-password) being in /html

I would like file1 just call file2.php in cgi-bin, so if there is some
problem with php, people would only see
<?
include "/cgi-bin/file2.php?c1=$c1"
?>

instead of sql-password. And file2.php including password would be in
protected directory, not visible to net.

Am I trying the right thing?


Im not sure if file1.php should run include, exec, or something else?

The real code (that im trying to move to file2.php) uses echo:s to make a
html-page

Does it work like that, or do i need to use some return, to return the page
from file2 to file1, and only file1 to echo it?