As I understand it, altering $GLOBALS directly is *UNSUPPORTED* -- Don't do
it. Use global and an assignment.
I'd say in contrary, don´t use "global" unless you need a reference in the currently active scope and sometimes you just don´t need any (eg. single access)
Don't dink around with an internal
structure ($GLOBALS) to do something where there is instead a documented
solution.
Maybe it´s time to add some information about $GLOBALS (placed in todo)
I believe Rasmus or Zeev even said this on the PHP General list, way back
when.
it was meant "for *general* purpose" only I think :)
as zeev said sometimes you just can´t avoid using it playing around with references and several times it just makes more sense (performance wise) to use the $GLOBALS array...
andré