Re: Confusing pointers in PHP 4 and 5

I think, and I could be completely wrong, that copying a variable actually creates a reference. The data is only copied when the variable referenced is modified. "Bert Slagter" <bert@procurios.nl> wrote in message news:20040609072455.27050.qmail@pb1.pair.com... > Sara Golemon wrote: > > Every "variable" in PHP is a pair. > > > > [cut] > > > > $foo = 1; > > > > /* $foo (label) --------> 1 (value) (is_ref=0, refcount=1) */ > > > > $bar = &$foo; > > > > /* $foo (label) ----------> 1 (value) */ > > /* $bar (label) -------/ is_ref=1, refcount=2 */ > > > > Hope that helps. > > > > -Sara > > Thanks for the clear explanation :). I understood that in PHP 5 objects > are automatically referenced when assigned, and 'primary types' like > int, bool, string are normally copied when assigned. > > When I do a (very rough) benchmark with strings/ints, assigning (and > thus copying) a 1000 bytes string isn't significantly slower than > referencing it. Also: memory usage is exactly the same. > > Is there any situation in which one might *manually* want to reference a > variable instead of assigning it (like: $x =& $y)? > > Bert