note 77022 deleted from language.oop5.basic by danbrown

Note Submitter: mep_eisen at web dot de ---- referring to steven's post: **** Perhaps this is because =& statements join the 2 variable names in the symbol table, whereas = statements applied to objects simply create a new independent entry in the symbol table that simply points to the same location as other entries. I don't know for sure - I don't think this behavior is documented in the PHP manual, so perhaps somebody with more knowledge of PHP's internals can clarify what is going on. **** lets talk about a =& b; b = c; PHP internally marks a to be a reference to b. If You reassign b PHP does not update a. But if you access a once more PHP looks at the current value of b (now containing c). Both statements (a=b and a=&b) seem to do the same but they don't. However this changed for objects from PHP4 to PHP5. Where PHP4 needed this operator to avoid object cloning, PHP5 does not need it. It is explained in chapter 21 (References Explained). It's important to understand that a becomes a reference and the following code will not modify b: a =& b; a =& c;