thus is_reference() never makes sense, you simply cannot spot the reference
note:
what *could* make sense for debugging is a function like are_identical($foo,$foo2) which compares if they both belong to the same zval_struct (you could even write this one is userland, by saving the original value, assigning a new value and watch if the other one changes)
I do not have thoroughly thought about it, but I *could* imagine that it could be useful to recognize two variables as being the same, while it would not be possible using ===
two avoid further trouble it should be not be named, if introduced, with the word "reference" in it and ==& or &== or whatever is ugly and misleading to, ==== is ridiculously, maybe we would have ========== some day to test if two variables are one the same planet... ;)
maybe __is_identical(), __identical() or another ugly name to prevent standard users from using it
andré
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