note 124750 deleted from language.variables.scope by crell

Note Submitter: ketansheladiya1 ---- As per PHP standards The new operator returns a reference automatically, so assigning the result of new by reference is not allowed as of PHP 7.0.0, results in an E_DEPRECATED message as of PHP 5.3.0, and an E_STRICT message in earlier versions. https://www.php.net/manual/en/language.operators.assignment.php so you can use following code to check <?php function &get_instance_ref() { static $obj; echo 'Static object: '; var_dump($obj); if (!isset($obj)) { // Assign a reference to the static variable $obj = new stdclass; } $obj->property++; return $obj; } function &get_instance_noref() { static $obj; echo 'Static object: '; var_dump($obj); if (!isset($obj)) { // Assign the object to the static variable $obj = new stdclass; } $obj->property++; return $obj; } $obj1 = get_instance_ref(); $still_obj1 = get_instance_ref(); echo "\n"; $obj2 = get_instance_noref(); $still_obj2 = get_instance_noref(); ?>