Maybe, there's a setting for this in php.ini.
yes. there is:
declaration of [runtime function name](). If you would like to enable
call-time pass-by-reference, you can set
allow_call_time_pass_reference to true in your INI file.
"pass-by-reference" has not been dropped, it is "Call-time pass-by-reference" which is being deprecated.
so call-time pass-by-reference is giving parameters as reference to functions, e.g.
function returnObjectToAccumulator(&$obj) {...}
If this feature is really dropped, how would you implement ConnectionPools for DB-connections for instance, or any classes
managing a set of object and providing them by returning references?
many OOP design patterns (primarily adopted from java) would not be
possible anymore. I think this would be worth talking about.
Is there any plausible reason for that decision?
/dorgon