Bug #12454 Updated: Static references are transient inside methods

ID: 12454 Updated by: mfischer@php.net Reported By: nick@macaw.demon.co.uk -Status: Open +Status: Closed Bug Type: Documentation problem Operating System: Linux PHP Version: 4.0.6 New Comment: This bug has been fixed in CVS. You can grab a snapshot of the CVS version at http://snaps.php.net/. In case this was a documentation problem, the fix will show up soon at http://www.php.net/manual/. In case this was a PHP.net website problem, the change will show up on the PHP.net site and on the mirror sites. Thank you for the report, and for helping us make PHP better. Previous Comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2002-03-01 20:10:26] mfischer@php.net Making this a documentation problem. Static variables just can't hold references of any kind. For objects it's avoidable with ZE2 because of the new object model. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2001-07-29 05:14:19] nick@macaw.demon.co.uk Another unfortunate bug with references appears to be that statics holding references inside methods are actually transient, and a reference will be lost. For example, calling the following code several times will initialise $db and return every time with a new instance. function &getInstance() { static $db; if (!isset($db)) { $db =& new FS_DB(); } return $db; } whereas the following will give true singeton behaviour and initialise just once, as expected. function &getInstance() { static $db; if (!isset($db)) { $db = new FS_DB(); } return $db; } ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Edit this bug report at http://bugs.php.net/?id=12454&edit=1