note 89321 deleted from language.oop5.cloning by cmb

Note Submitter: koyama ---- The __clone() method for deep cloning by cheetah at tanabi dot org also works when the object to be cloned contains references to itself. This is not the case for any variation of the __clone() method in edit by danbrown at php dot net. We are taking advantage of the fact that one can serialize an object that references itself. Example: <?php class Foo { function __construct() { $this->_myself = $this; } function __clone() { foreach ($this as $key => $val) { if (is_object($val) || (is_array($val))) { $this->{$key} = unserialize(serialize($val)); } } } } // this object references itself $foo = new Foo(); // create a deep clone $bar = clone $foo; // check if we reach this point echo 'Finished cloning!'; ?> Replacing the __clone() method with the one shown in edit by danbrown at php dot net we run into an infinite loop, and we never get message 'Finished cloning!'.