Hi i hav extended the mysqli class and want to add some further functionality to the static method i have created for creation of the database access object (see below). I want to add some further functionality however to read in the current website url and then point to a different database based on the url. When i try to add code into the static method looking for certain characters in the $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] global variable i get error messages:

Call to a member function query() on a non-object

I assume i cant call global verianbles in a static method perhaps? Any guidance on what th issue is and how i might solve?

Of cource you can. This error is not related with accessing globals. Somwhere in your code you're calling method of non-object variable. The easiest way would be to extend/edit your constructor method. This way you'll be sure that '$this' is instance of your class and you can call $this->query() without errors.