Re: Passing by references

"Toby Butzon" <php-lists@imawebdesigner.com> writes: > What you're trying to do _can_ be done using PHP's references. > > When PHP parses your code, it builds a array/hash which holds variables by > name and value (among other things which are insignificant to this > discussion, such as type, size, etc.). If you create a reference, PHP just > adds an additional key for the same value (hence the variable's contents are > not copied, and an alias is created). > > If you are creating large variables within functions and want to keep from > copying the value to a new variable, _do_ return it as a reference AND > assign the function's return to the variable as a reference and you will not > be copying the data, but rather just creating an alias. > > For example: > > function &myFunction() { > // create variable you don't want to copy around > return $myVeryLargeVariable; > } > > $myVeryLargeVariable =& myFunction(); Thanks for that. Seems to make some improvement... What you describe above seems to cover returning by reference. Am I correct? If this is the case, would the following bit of code : $x = 2; $y = 2; $result =& return_result($x, $y); print("RESULT is $result"); exit(); function &return_result($x, $y) { $result = $x + $y; return($result); } allocate space for $result twice, or just the once? Also, how would I pass references to x and y to the function instead of passing x and y? If I pass x and y as I am in this example (and yes, I know it's brane damiged(tm) because the variables are so small references don't save me any memory), aren't I allocating memory for them twice? Thanks, -- A Complete Luser <acompleteluser@penguinpowered.org.uk>