Bug #63087 [Com]: Passing a reference to a function does not work when parentheses are used

Edit report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=63087&edit=1 ID: 63087 Comment by: nikic@php.net Reported by: charlie at charliesomerville dot com Summary: Passing a reference to a function does not work when parentheses are used Status: Feedback Type: Bug Package: Scripting Engine problem Operating System: Linux PHP Version: master-Git-2012-09-14 (Git) Block user comment: N Private report: N New Comment: @charlie: You can find a detailed description of why this happens here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6726589/parentheses-altering-semantics-of-function-call-result/6732876#6732876 This is once again an issue caused by the AST-less compilation process. (https://wiki.php.net/rfc/ast_based_parsing_compilation_process) Previous Comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2012-09-14 09:56:49] laruence@php.net wrong status. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2012-09-14 09:55:23] laruence@php.net it will be appreciated, thanks ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2012-09-14 09:52:14] charlie at charliesomerville dot com If you leave the ticket open, I might try my hand at fixing this. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2012-09-14 09:45:55] laruence@php.net yes, this is a knew issue, the similar thing will also happen while you use '@'; you will get a STRICT WARNING about this. right? I'd like mark this as wont'fix, it's a compiler issue, fix this is expensive ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2012-09-14 07:01:04] charlie at charliesomerville dot com Description: ------------ To be specific, this only occurs when passing a reference returned by a function into another function that takes a reference. This behaves as expected with a variable instead of a function call, so I believe this is a bug. Test script: --------------- <?php function &return_a() { global $a; return $a; } $a = [1,2,3]; array_shift(return_a()); print_r($a); $a = [1,2,3]; array_shift((return_a())); print_r($a); Expected result: ---------------- Array ( [0] => 2 [1] => 3 ) Array ( [0] => 2 [1] => 3 ) Actual result: -------------- Array ( [0] => 2 [1] => 3 ) Array ( [0] => 1 [1] => 2 [2] => 3 ) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Edit this bug report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=63087&edit=1