ActionScript 2.0 class scripts may only define class or interface constructs.

Question

This is driving me nuts. I have an old AS1 project which I
upgraded to AS2. It uses an include file, settings.as, which has
stuff like this:
settings = new Object();
settings.property = 'some value';
Then I include it on the main timeline like this:
#include "settings.as"
Every time I render, I get a million and one Compile Errors
stating:
"ActionScript 2.0 class scripts may only define class or
interface constructs."
But it isn't an ActionScript 2.0 class! It's just a regular
include. How do I avoid the bogus Compile Errors?

Answer 1

Okay, I found why the compiler is getting confused.
In my settings.as file I create an object named 'settings' as
mentioned. Later in my code elsewhere on the timeline, I refer to
settings.property. When Flash sees that, I guess it sees that I
refer to an object 'settings' and that there's a .as file called
'settings' and it erroneously assumes it should be a class or
something. I concluded this because if I change the object or .as
name so that they do not match, the compile errors go away. As far
as I know there's no way to tell the compiler that settings.as is
not a class, despite the fact I'm not telling Flash that it is a
class.