note 99950 deleted from control-structures.foreach by danbrown

Note Submitter: purdue at nc dot rr dot com ---- With regard to the 08-Aug-2010 note below, the problem is that the reference still exists after the foreach, referring to the last array element. A simpler example: $vals = array("zero", "one", "two"); print_r($vals); foreach ($vals as &$val) {} print_r($vals); // array is still zero,one,two foreach ($vals as $val) {} print_r($vals); // array is now zero,one,one! During the second foreach loop, $val stays a reference to the last element of the array (a holdover from the first foreach loop). So during each loop: 0: $val = "zero" [first element of array] $vals = ("zero", "one", "zero") [$val points to last element] 1: $val = "one" [second element of array] $vals = ("zero", "one", "one") [again, $val changes last element] 2. $val = "one" [third element of array, at this instant] $vals = ("zero", "one", "one") [last element written to same value] The moral of the story is to unset any variable used as a reference in a foreach, after the foreach is done!