Temporary namespace - php

Question

Is there any way to temporary use a namespace ?
I'm using a library to create forms and it uses namespaces, the problem is that I usually want to create a form in the middle of a page, which is thus in the global namespace. Then if I want to call any function of this library I have to prefix everything with Namespace\
Isn't there any way in PHP to do something like this :
Blabla global namespace
strlen('test'); // 4
namespace Namespace
{
test();
}
More global PHP
And have it refer to Namespace\test ?

Answer 1

http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.namespaces.importing.php
<?php
namespace foo;
use My\Full\Classname as Another;
// this is the same as use My\Full\NSname as NSname
use My\Full\NSname;
// importing a global class
use ArrayObject;
$obj = new namespace\Another; // instantiates object of class foo\Another
$obj = new Another; // instantiates object of class My\Full\Classname
NSname\subns\func(); // calls function My\Full\NSname\subns\func
$a = new ArrayObject(array(1)); // instantiates object of class ArrayObject
// without the "use ArrayObject" we would instantiate an object of class foo\ArrayObject
?>
This is about the closest you can get - there's no way to change the default namespace temporarily.

Answer 2

I know this is an old question, and while the accepted answer answers the question as it was asked, I feel like what the OP is really asking is "Can I use items in the global namespace from another namespace. The answer here is a clear and simple yes.
Imagine two classes (one in the global namespace, another in its own:
ClassInGlobal.php
<?php
class ClassInGlobal
{
public static function doStuff()
{
echo 'I do some stuff';
}
}
ClassInNamespace.php
<?php
namespace App\Classes;
class ClassInNamespace
{
public function callDoStuff()
{
\ClassInGlobal::doStuff();
}
}
The above executes fine. All that is required is a leading slash to specify the fully qualified global namespace. Additionally, you could add a use ClassInGlobal declaration right after the namespace declaration and omit the leading slash.
This might translate into the original question by abstracting the namespaced functions into a class Then you could modify the OP's code slightly to acheive this:
require './Namespace/Utilities.php';
Blabla global namespace
strlen('test'); // 4
\Namespace\Utilities::test();
More global PHP
Hope that helps someone coming here looking for that.