Namespaces
PHP Manual

Global space

Without any namespace definition, all class and function definitions are placed into the global space - as it was in PHP before namespaces were supported. Prefixing a name with \ will specify that the name is required from the global space even in the context of the namespace.

Example #1 Using global space specification

<?php
namespace A\B\C;

/* This function is A\B\C\fopen */
function fopen() { 
     
/* ... */
     
$f = \fopen(...); // call global fopen
     
return $f;

?>


Namespaces
PHP Manual