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    After a long and frustrating trouble-shoot, I have discovered that this works:
 <{include file="db:`$mydirname`_inc_photo_info.html"}>  
but this doesn't:
 <{include file="db:'$mydirname'_inc_photo_info.html"}>  
Apparently, using back-ticks for object references in Smarty is correct, so don't make the mistake I did of changing them into single-quotes thinking they were an error. 
 
     
          
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