KIM333 0 Newbie Poster

My doubts are:
when the code of functions.php (wordpress) will be executed?
can I declare there global variables to use them in other functions?

I'm trying to understand the code of a function which initialize some parameters and start with this code:

if ( $_GET['page'] == basename(__FILE__) ) { ...}

what is this 'if' for? How it works?

Thanks a lot!!!