Doc #80541 [Com]: Using a reference as iterator variable turns the whole array into a reference

Edit report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=80541&edit=1 ID: 80541 Comment by: jeanettegomez17 at gmail dot com Reported by: andre at webkr dot de Summary: Using a reference as iterator variable turns the whole array into a reference Status: Open Type: Documentation Problem Package: Arrays related PHP Version: 8.0.0 Block user comment: N Private report: N New Comment: To create an array, you have to declare a variable with an array type and then create the array itself. As explained in Section 7.2, array variables contain references to arrays. https://www.njmcdirect.one/ Previous Comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2020-12-22 09:54:52] andre at webkr dot de Description: ------------ I'm not sure whether this is a bug or a documentation bug. I'd consider it a bug but given the promise of backwards compatibility it's unlikely to be fixed. If the iterator variable in a foreach is a reference, then the whole array becomes a reference and it is no longer safe to append to the array. This is true even when the iterator variable is not actually used anywhere. At least this behavior should be documented. The documentation currently says: > In order to be able to directly modify array elements within the loop precede $value with > &. In that case the value will be assigned by reference. It says nothing about the array itself, only about the array values, reenforcing the wrong impression that it is still safe to add or remove array elements. Test script: --------------- $arr = ['a','b','c']; foreach ($arr as &$dummy) { $arr []= 'foo'; } var_dump($arr); Expected result: ---------------- array(6) { [0]=> string(1) "a" [1]=> string(1) "b" [2]=> string(1) "c" [3]=> string(3) "foo" [4]=> string(3) "foo" [5]=> string(3) "foo" } Actual result: -------------- Fatal error: Allowed memory size of [...] bytes exhausted ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Edit this bug report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=80541&edit=1