Secure coding practice

[doorknob]

I've been examining all of the components in my development site for security vulnerabilities, specifically whether variables (rather than constants) are used in include() statements because these represent a potential security vulnerability.
Your code makes use of a global variable in this way. It does appear to be secure because it is set without using variables just before it is used (or I would be contacting you privately) but can I request that you change to using a constant instead of a global variable ($xmapComponentPath) so that we can all be more confident.
Thanks
Phil