note 52294 added to language.variables.scope

Be careful if your static variable is an array and you return one of it's elements: Other than a scalar variable, elements of an array are returned as reference (regardless if you didn't define them to be returned by reference). <?php function incr(&$int) { return $int++; } function return_copyof_scalar() { static $v; if (!$v) $v = 1; return($v); } function return_copyof_arrayelement() { static $v; if (!$v) { $v = array(); $v[0] = 1; } return($v[0]); } echo "scalar: ". incr(return_copyof_scalar()). incr(return_copyof_scalar()). "\n"; echo "arrayelement: ". incr(return_copyof_arrayelement()). incr(return_copyof_arrayelement()). "\n"; ?> Should print scalar: 11 arrayelement: 11 but it prints: scalar: 11 arrayelement: 12 as in the second case the arrays element was returned by reference. According to a guy from the bug reports the explanation for this behaviour should be somewhere here in the documentation (in 'the part with title: "References with global and static variables"'). Unfortunately I can't find anything about that here. As the guys from the bug reports are surely right in every case, maybe there is something missing in the documentation. Sadly I don't have a good explanation why this happens, so I decided to document at least the behaviour. ---- Manual Page -- http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.variables.scope.php Edit -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=edit+52294 Delete: added to the manual -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=delete+52294&report=yes&reason=added+to+the+manual Delete: bad code -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=delete+52294&report=yes&reason=bad+code Delete: spam -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=delete+52294&report=yes&reason=spam Delete: useless -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=delete+52294&report=yes&reason=useless Delete: other reasons -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=delete+52294&report=yes Reject -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=reject+52294&report=yes Search -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php