Re: Unsetting global variables within a function?

At 11:18 AM -0500 2000-06-01, Paul DuBois wrote:

I have an HTML form. One of the form actions requires that I clear out all the current form variables so that I can present a new, empty form. I want to unset these variables from within a function. Suppose I have a variable named $date from the form. This does not appear to work: function xxx () { global $date; unset ($date); } On the other hand, this does work: function xxx () { unset ($GLOBALS["date"]); } Just curious why this is.

Well, naturally, just *minutes* after posting this message, I ran across another discussion on the developer's list that explains exactly why this is. That discussion contained a pointer to this article, which has the details: http://www.zend.com/zend/art/ref-count.php Basically, variables declared with global are references to the "real" global, and unsetting them only unsets the local reference. -- Paul DuBois, paul@snake.net