In PHP everything’s a reference! I’ve heard it so many times in my practice. No, these words are too strong! Let’s see some examples.
Passing Parameters by Reference
Clearly when we pass parameters to a function it’s not by reference. How to check this? Well, like this.
function f($param) { $param++; } $a = 5; f($a); echo $a; |
Now the value of $a equals 5. If it were passed by reference, it would be 6. With a little change of the code we can get it.
function f(&$param) { $param++; } $a = 5; f($a); echo $a; |
Now the variable’s value is 6.
So far, so good. Now what about copying objects?
Continue reading Object Cloning and Passing by Reference in PHP