Re: bug when using foreach with references?

On Mon, 16 Nov 2009, Mathieu Suen wrote: > > > It would be arbitrarily breaking an explicit reference. I know I > > > have code lying around that relies on multiple loops cleaning up a > > > big complicated multi-level array. I do ugly things with > > > references into that array and it would completely break if PHP > > > magically deleted my references whether they are in the iterator > > > or elsewhere. > > > > > > This has been this way for 6+ years and it is well documented on > > > the http://php.net/foreach page. (see the big red > > > warning box) > > Even though, that's a language issue. Why the hell in php the foreach > do not capture the variable properly? It *does* work properly. I will try to explain once more... The following code: <?php $items = array('apple', 'banana', 'carrot'); print_r($items); foreach ($items as &$item) { } print_r($items); foreach ($items as $item) { } print_r($items); ?> can be rolled out into: <?php $items = array('apple', 'banana', 'carrot'); print_r($items); $item =& $items[0]; $item =& $items[1]; $item =& $items[2]; // line A // $item now is the same var as $items[2]; print_r($items); // $item still is the same as $items[2] as done in Line A, so $items[2] (and // $item because it's the same variable) gets modified to 'apple'. $item = $items[0]; // $item still is the same as $items[2] as done in Line A, so $items[2] (and // $item because it's the same variable) gets modified to 'banana'. $item = $items[1]; // $item still is the same as $items[2] as done in Line A, so $items[2] (and // $item because it's the same variable) gets modified to 'banana' because it // was assigned to this value in the line above. $item = $items[2]; print_r($items); ?> Does it makes sense now? Derick -- http://derickrethans.nl | http://ezcomponents.org | http://xdebug.org twitter: @derickr