Returning References in PHP

[dcmbrown]

I've been trying to create a function in which it will return two values.

One via the regular route of:

return $x;

and the other via a reference in a manner similar to $matches[] in (eg. preg_match)

right now I have something like:

function foo($query, &$matches)
{
$result = $this->db->query($query);

  if ($result !== false)
 {
       $matches = &$this->db->getRows();
       return count($matches);
  }

  return 0;

}

Even if count($rows) is greater than zero though, $matches never contains anything. I'm obviously missing something from the References Explained.

Also, is it not possible to do this:

function foo($query, &$matches = null)

Can anyone help?

[Shrike]

First of all, you can't have a default value parameter as a reference (since how would there being something to refer to if the default value was used). To make a function return it's value by reference, put an ampersand before the function name: function &funcname() {}