#34291 [NEW]: reference comparison: $a isIdenticalTo $b

From: csaba at alum dot mit dot edu Operating system: PHP version: 5.1.0RC1 PHP Bug Type: Feature/Change Request Bug description: reference comparison: $a isIdenticalTo $b Description: ------------ I would like to recommend a (boolean) operator: $ref1 isIdenticalTo $ref2 to compare whether two references are identical. A main use of this is in tree traversal. For example: $a = array(7); $a[] = &$a; // we now have a self reference print $a[1][1][1][0]; // => 7. All is OK if ($a==$a[1]) print "same"; // Fails Both $a==$a[1] and $a===$a[1] will fail because the nesting level is too deep. This is in agreement with the documentation, which says that values are tested. If I could do isIdenticalTo however (one could not use ==== with a straight face), then by placing the references of subarrays encountered onto an $aVisited array, I could run through them myself and check with isIdenticalTo and thus avoid exceeding a nesting level. An example where this (appropriately) happens is with $GLOBALS, since $GLOBALS["GLOBALS"] isIdenticalTo $GLOBALS. Thanks for considering this, Csaba Gabor from Vienna -- Edit bug report at http://bugs.php.net/?id=34291&edit=1 -- Try a CVS snapshot (php4): http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=34291&r=trysnapshot4 Try a CVS snapshot (php5.0): http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=34291&r=trysnapshot50 Try a CVS snapshot (php5.1): http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=34291&r=trysnapshot51 Fixed in CVS: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=34291&r=fixedcvs Fixed in release: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=34291&r=alreadyfixed Need backtrace: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=34291&r=needtrace Need Reproduce Script: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=34291&r=needscript Try newer version: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=34291&r=oldversion Not developer issue: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=34291&r=support Expected behavior: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=34291&r=notwrong Not enough info: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=34291&r=notenoughinfo Submitted twice: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=34291&r=submittedtwice register_globals: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=34291&r=globals PHP 3 support discontinued: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=34291&r=php3 Daylight Savings: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=34291&r=dst IIS Stability: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=34291&r=isapi Install GNU Sed: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=34291&r=gnused Floating point limitations: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=34291&r=float No Zend Extensions: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=34291&r=nozend MySQL Configuration Error: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=34291&r=mysqlcfg