Re: function by reference

On Tue, 2006-04-11 at 23:15, Martin Alterisio "El Hombre Gris" wrote: > Well, it was a bad example to begin with, first of all max() is already > defined in php, I should at least checked that before posting. Second, I > forgot PHP (the Zend engine) has an interesting way of handling > variables, when you copy assign a var or pass it as an argument of a > function, a real copy is not made but a reference. When you modify the > reference, an actual copy is made before the modification. What's > happening with the function you posted is that the variables are not > passed by copy but by reference, that's why it works. Anyway, this is > due to conditions on the way PHP (the Zend engine) handles its internal, > you shouldn't rely on this in your code. > > http://www.zend.com/zend/art/ref-count.php More popularly known as "copy-on-write". Wikipedia does a good job of explaining the virtues: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copy-on-write Cheers, Rob. -- .------------------------------------------------------------. | InterJinn Application Framework - http://www.interjinn.com | :------------------------------------------------------------: | An application and templating framework for PHP. Boasting | | a powerful, scalable system for accessing system services | | such as forms, properties, sessions, and caches. InterJinn | | also provides an extremely flexible architecture for | | creating re-usable components quickly and easily. | `------------------------------------------------------------'