oop: "&" call by reference question

j0sh

hi all.

i have a class that handles with several sub classes.
i wanted to pass a reference to the main class to a function of a subclass, so the main class can be used and altered within the subclass.
i tried it with an ampersand "&" in from of the parameters, but i remarked that it just does not have any influence on the result!

01 | class mainClass {
02 |   function x() {
03 |     $sub = new subClass();
04 | 
05 |     // call the subclass' function
06 |     $sub->someFunc(&$this);
07 |   }
08 | }
09 | 
10 | class subClass {
11 |   function someFunc(&$main) {
12 |     // ... do some stuff ...
13 |   }
14 | }

i tried several possibilities:
$sub->someFunc(&$this);
function someFunc(&$main)

$sub->someFunc($this);
function someFunc(&$main)

$sub->someFunc(&$this);
function someFunc($main)

$sub->someFunc($this);
function someFunc($main)

but how said, it did not have any influence on the result.

my question: is there always just passed a reference and not the whole "$this" object?

thank you very much for info.
Josh

rehfeld

i think there is a config option in php.ini that may allow this

call_time_pass_reference or something like that

but its not recomended to use it. its viewed as sloppy coding i guess. that option might be php5 only though.

instead, the function itself should define if it should reference or copy the value

function foo(&$var) {
$var = 'new value';
}

i think if you have error_reporting set to E_ALL php will tell you not to use references when calling the function. but that might be only in php5, and maybe would only show up if error reporting included php5's E_STRICT, and if the php.ini option is set to not allow it.

but basically, use the & in the function definition itself, and do not use it when calling the function. and i beleive it should work.

but maybe what your trying to do is only possible w/ php5. php4 has pretty limited oo support.