Re: bug when using foreach with references?

Hi Jill,

<?php $items = array('apple', 'banana', 'carrot'); print_r($items); foreach ($items as &$item) { }

$item is now a reference to the last element of $items.

print_r($items); foreach ($items as $item) { }

And here, the foreach loop writes to $item for each element: thus assiging that value to the last element of $items.

The last element of $items is 'carrot'. Why does it print apple, banana, banana? It sounds like you're saying that $item should be left with the value 'carrot', which makes sense, but why would the original array be modified? (These are empty foreach loops.)

print_r($items); ?> // Output: Array (

    [0] => apple
    [1] => banana
    [2] => carrot

) Array (

    [0] => apple
    [1] => banana
    [2] => carrot

) Array (

    [0] => apple
    [1] => banana
    [2] => banana

) Two bananas in the last set?! Not what I expected.

You can fix your bug by using 'unset($item);' after the second foreach-loop.