Re: [PHP] Passing by references From: A Complete Luser (acompleteluser <email protected>)
Date: 12/29/00

"Toby Butzon" <php-lists <email protected>> writes:

> What you're trying to do _can_ be done using PHP's references.
>
> When PHP parses your code, it builds a array/hash which holds variables by
> name and value (among other things which are insignificant to this
> discussion, such as type, size, etc.). If you create a reference, PHP just
> adds an additional key for the same value (hence the variable's contents are
> not copied, and an alias is created).
>
> If you are creating large variables within functions and want to keep from
> copying the value to a new variable, _do_ return it as a reference AND
> assign the function's return to the variable as a reference and you will not
> be copying the data, but rather just creating an alias.
>
> For example:
>
> function &myFunction() {
> // create variable you don't want to copy around
> return $myVeryLargeVariable;
> }
>
> $myVeryLargeVariable =& myFunction();

Thanks for that. Seems to make some improvement... What you describe
above seems to cover returning by reference. Am I correct? If this is
the case, would the following bit of code :

    $x = 2;
    $y = 2;
    $result =& return_result($x, $y);
    print("RESULT is $result");
    exit();

function &return_result($x, $y)
{

    $result = $x + $y;

    return($result);

}

allocate space for $result twice, or just the once?

Also, how would I pass references to x and y to the function instead
of passing x and y? If I pass x and y as I am in this example (and
yes, I know it's brane damiged(tm) because the variables are so small
references don't save me any memory), aren't I allocating memory for
them twice?

Thanks, 

-- 
A Complete Luser <acompleteluser <email protected>>

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