Arrays within classes

This is driving me crazy! I've created a class to hold data so I can just put the object into the session rather than saving off each piece of data separately. But I'm getting odd results from the arrays in my class that I can't explain. Here's a hunk of code that demonstrates: <?php class test { var $words; function test() $t = $this->$words; echo "1: words = $t<br>\n"; // Shows that $words is empty $this->$words = array(); $t = $this->$words; echo "2: words = $t<br>\n"; // Shows that $words is an array $t = $this->$words["Amy"]; echo "3: words[Amy] = $t<br>\n"; // Shows that $words["Amy"] is also an array -- WHAT?? } }; ####### Declare a$ to be an array echo "1: a = $a<br>\n"; // Shows that $a is empty $a = array(); $t = $a; echo "2: a = $t<br>\n"; // Shows that $a is an array $t = $a["Amy"]; echo "3: a[Amy] = $t<br>\n"; // Shows that $a["Amy"] is also empty -- GOOD echo "<br><br>"; ###### Instantiate a test object $test = new test; ?> When I declare a member variable ($words) within the class and then assign to it an empty array, it seems all the elements of that array are also arrays -- they should be empty. When I do the same thing outside of a class ($a), I get the results I expect. Can anyone tell me why that is? Thanks Brian bmclaugh@georgefox.edu