Variable References and Objects. fun fun fun

Hi, How should I create an object (into var i) and move it to another var (j) without copying it, and then not having the original var (i) associated with the object? Here is a method that I found works. 1. class x { 2. var $blah; 3. } 4. $i = new x(); 5. $i->blah = "foo"; 6. $j = &$i; 7. print "i is ".$i->blah."\n"; // 'foo' 8. print "j is ".$j->blah."\n"; // 'foo' 9. $i->blah = "bar"; // Prove link. 10. print "set to bar\n"; 11. print "i is ".$i->blah."\n"; // 'bar' 12. print "j is ".$j->blah."\n"; // 'bar' 13. unset($i); // Unset $i to break the link, else we kill the object. 14. $i = null; 15. print "null i\n"; 16. print "i is ".$i->blah."\n"; // nothing 17. print "j is ".$j->blah."\n"; // 'bar' Line 13 is the hack. Is there are better way that doesn't involve using unset()? If I omit line 13 the object gets killed/nulled. Perhaps php should support something like: $i = &null; // null or any other expression. where $i is assigned null but if $i is a reference it is not dereferenced first. Basically, storage should be made for the result of the expression and $i made a reference to that storage. (Kind of like temporarily 'naming' the expression with a var name and creating a ref to the temp var name). food for thought... -- Simon Edwards Animated Design, Melbourne http://www.animated.net.au/ Ph: (03) 98850990