Hence my previous gibberish, I would expect a reference to be destroyed
when the object is, but obviously it's not.
It has nothing specifically to do with objects, it's all about how references are handled.
$ php -a
Interactive mode enabled
<?php
$a = '12345';
$b = &$a;
unset($a);
var_dump($b);
string(5) "12345"
Sara Goleman will explain it much better than I can:
http://blog.libssh2.org/index.php?/archives/51-Youre-being-lied-to..html
ie - it's by design and will (probably) not change.
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Postgresql & php tutorials
http://www.designmagick.com/