On Nov 19, 2007, at 4:29 PM, Ben Sgro (ProjectSkyLine) wrote:
Hello,
Sorry to hijack, but I started thinking about something I read
for optimization of php.
They stated, if you know your not going to make changes
to a variable, to send it to a function as reference, as to NOT
make a copy of it...
Going back to some very, very old threads on here, I though that
copies were
only made if the variable was changed. If the variable is not
changed, I
believe php is smart enough to reference, not copy, the variable.
Cliff
Yeah... you should reread this: http://www.php.net/references -- They
updated it sometime in the last year or two. It's much more clear
about how references work. Here are the highlights:
"They are not like C pointers; instead, they are symbol table aliases."
"Do not use return-by-reference to increase performance, the engine is
smart enough to optimize this on its own. Only return references when
you have a valid technical reason to do it!"
Also, in php5 - when you assign an object:
$a = new SomeClass();
$b = $a;
$b is actually assigned by reference. Regular assignment of objects
is always done by reference. If you want to make an actual copy, you
have to use clone():
http://us2.php.net/manual/en/language.oop5.cloning.php
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