Re: php reference behavior

22 Manopohuji wrote:

hi, i'm running into some weird behavior with php references. i distilled it down to some test code below: <?php $array = array( 'name' => 'dean' ); $var1['arrayref'] = & $array; $var2 = $var1; echo "var1:\n"; print_r( $var1 ); echo "var2:\n"; print_r( $var2 ); $var1['arrayref'] = NULL; echo "var1:\n"; print_r( $var1 ); echo "var2:\n"; print_r( $var2 ); ?> it seems that setting a hash key to a reference to something, and then repointing that key to NULL, apparently sets the original 'something' to NULL instead of just 'repointing' the hash key! am i missing something obvious here, or is this behavior not what you'd normally expect? i wrote similar code in perl, and it behaved as i expected: the second hash still pointed to the original target (i am almost certain c/c++ and java also behave this way). so what is going on with php? does anyone know how to get it to do what i want it to do -- i.e., merely unset the key mapping of one of the hashes, leaving the other hash still pointing at the target? thansk for any insight you might be able to give! xomina

Have a look at: http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.references.php <quote>They are not like C pointers, they are symbol table aliases.</quote> Instead of: $var1['arrayref'] = NULL; use: unset($var1['arrayref']); Peter