Ampersand question

[MadMikey]

I know what the difference is between passing variable ByVal and ByRef using the ampersand, but what is the difference between the following lines of code?

$foo = new Bar;

  and

$foo = & new Bar;

I've seen this a few times, but can't figure out why. Any help is appreciated.

Mikey

[swr]

It's assigning by reference.

$a = "foo";
$b =& $a; // $b now shares $a's content.
$b = "bar";
echo $a; // "bar"

This is especially useful when moving objects around, because using the regular assignment operator ("=") makes copies and you can find yourself manipulating the wrong instance.

See the [man]references[/man] section in the manual for more info.

[Moonglobe]

in php5 this isn't a problem as objects are passed around by reference automatically