Re: Return Values Copied? Copied if By Reference?

On Thu, 2006-07-27 at 01:35, Larry Garfield wrote: > On Wednesday 26 July 2006 21:41, Robert Cummings wrote: > > > > I'm working on some code that would be called to generate a cell in a > > > possibly large table and therefore a small difference in performance > > > may have a significant impact. > > > > PHP uses copy-on-write and so copies are essentially shared until such > > time as you modify one of them. If you don't need references then copies > > are faster than references. > > By the same token, then, if I have a function that generates a large string > and returns it, is there any benefit to return-by-reference? Nope. You should only use references if you really need them. Attempting to improve efficiency by using references instead of copies when you aren't actually in need of a reference will result in less efficiency since the engine spends more time creating the reference than the copy. 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. | `------------------------------------------------------------'