Bug #14539 Updated: Assigning null to reference has unexpected results.

ID: 14539 Updated by: cox Reported By: jfrisby@mrjoy.com Old Status: Open Status: Bogus Bug Type: PEAR related Operating System: All PHP Version: 4.0.6 New Comment: References are not C pointers. It's documented in: http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.references.php -- Tomas V.V.Cox Previous Comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2001-12-15 20:15:14] jfrisby@mrjoy.com $foo =& new SomePEARDervidedClassWithADestructor(); $foo = null; In the above case, the destructor is never called. Presumably, the assignment is being interpreted as requesting that the object instance be nullified, rather than the more intuitive (IMNSHO) notion of nullifying the reference to the object. If you change the null-assignment line above to be: function &nullref() { return null; } $foo =& nullref(); The desired semantics are preserved. Of course, the following is presently invalid: $foo =& null; May I suggest that the above be added to allow the desired semantics in a simple fashion? Or at the very least, document this rather unexpected behavior? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Edit this bug report at http://bugs.php.net/?id=14539&edit=1