note 54153 deleted from control-structures.foreach by danbrown

Note Submitter: ---- The poster who submitted this loop style for iterating over variables by reference: <?php foreach( $object_list as $id => $the_object ) { $the_object = &$object_list[$id]; // Re-assign the variable to point to the real object // ... unset($the_object); // Break the link to the object so that foreach doesn't copy the next one on top of it. } ?> Using foreach() means you end up making a copy of the value, and then quickly reassign it to be a reference. This is a waste of the original copy operation. You may want to consider this, more meaningful and readable alternative: <?php reset($object_list); while (list($key) = each($object_list)) { $the_object = & $object_list[$key]; // Re-assign the variable to point to the real object // ... unset($the_object); // Break the link to the object so that foreach doesn't copy the next one on top of it. } ?>