Proposal: Implement FR #7930 (list() constructor reference assignment)

Good evening everyone, I have a simple suggestion for a feature addition, which I have already implemented. Over 13 years ago, someone suggested adding support for assigning by reference in list(), with the following syntax:

    $arr = [1, 2]
    list(&$a, $b) = $arr;

Which would be equivalent to:

    $a = &$arr[0];
    $b = $arr[2];

Their request is here: https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=6768 It seemed like a useful feature, so I implemented it. The syntax is a little unusual, in that normally you do $a = &$b, and with list() you'd do list(&$a) = [$b], but I don't think there's a better syntax for it that allows you to set some variables as references, but not all. The patch is here: https://github.com/TazeTSchnitzel/php-src/compare/ListByReference If people think it is useful, I'll write an RFC soon. Thanks, -- Andrea Faulds http://ajf.me/