Is there a way to tell if passed by value?

[toplay]

Function by_ref(&$_value)
{

   return echo “value is passed by reference: $_value”;

}

Function by_either($_value)
{

   return echo “value maybe passed by reference: $_value”;

}


$var = “test”;

by_ref($var);      // Must use variable

by_either(&$var);  // Variable passed by reference

by_either(“test”); // Value just passed

Is there a way to make function ‘by_either’ tell if the value passed to it was made by reference versus by value?

The reason I’m asking is because I have a class were you can pass it an associative array that may contain lots of key/value pairs. I don’t want to declare/force it to be passed by reference, yet I would like to unset() the array in my constructor (after I’m done using it) if I knew it was passed by value.

[Moonglobe]

yes and no.

the only way to do it is to turn off allow_call_time_pass_reference in php.ini. that means that you can't specify whether or not you're going to pas by reference when you call the function, you can only set it during function declaration. then you know whether it is or it isnt, because you can't do

by_either(&$test);

, php will throw an error.

[toplay]

Thank you, that was informative. I didn't know about that configuration option.

I'm building a class to publish under GNU GPL, so messing with the php.ini file isn't practical. So, I think I'm just not going to worry any more about the memory utilization aspect of it (when it's passed by value).

Thanks again.