How to move block functions into .inc file? I have a module that is getting pretty large and I want to move the functions that define blocks into another file to better organize my module.

I did this:


Moved those functions ( _block_configure, _block_info, _block_view, etc) to includes/blocks.inc in my module.
Put files[] = includes/blocks.inc in my .info file


This doesn't work though - the blocks disappear when I do this.  What am I doing wrong?
The files directive is used to include files containing classes, check documentation.
You could include the file in the .module file.

require_once __DIR__ . '/includes/blocks.inc';


Edit: Included the other solutions added by @Beebee and @Jimajamma in the answer:

require_once  drupal_get_path('module', 'mymodulename') . '/includes/blocks.inc';
module_load_include('inc', 'MY_MODULE', 'FILE_NAME');
// This method is including a file residing in the module folder not in a subdirectory.