note 56135 deleted from language.references.whatdo by colder

Note Submitter: chat~kaptain524 at neverbox dot com ---- Example 21-3 says that using references in "complex arrays" may not work as expected. But I have found a way around it, to get normal reference behavior. Compare the output of these two scripts: <?php for ( $i = 0; $i < 10; $i ++ ) $top[$i] = &$top; $top['A'] = 'AAAAA'; var_dump( $top ); ?> <?php $z = &$top; for ( $i = 0; $i < 10; $i ++ ) $top[$i] = &$top; $top['A'] = 'AAAAA'; var_dump( $top ); ?> Running PHP 5.0, the first generates about 157457 lines while the second only generates 2554 lines. The only difference in the code is setting an initial reference before adding self-references inside the array. This simple step prevents the array from being duplicated every time another self-reference is added. I am not sure if the duplication is intentional or if it's a bug in the way references are created, but the docs certainly recognize it.