[Resolved] dereferencing operator in PHP?

[Matt_Kindig]

Hi everyone,

Is there a dereferencing operator in PHP to refer to the actual object, rather than the reference? I know about the ->, but the object being refered to isn't a class instance, so that won't work. Basically, I'm looking for the equivalent of the C++ * operator to perform an action on the actual object, not the reference.

If not, maybe someone could suggest a way to solve this problem. I have a reference parameter to a mysql resource. I'd like to run the mysql_free_result function on the resource itself, not the reference. Like this,

function foo(& $results) {
// some code
    mysql_free_result($results) //this needs to be the mysql result itself
}

Thanks,
Matt

[halojoy]

I am afriad I know too little about using refences in PHP.
But there is a chapter in PHP Manual
References Explained

Hope it can help 🙂

[Matt_Kindig]

Thanks. I checked the manual and didn't see anything on it, so I suspected there wasn't a way, but I thought I'd check the forum anyway.

I actually figured out a work-around, rearranging the variables within my class, and now it works correctly. I'm marking this thread resolved, but if anyone out there knows whether a dereferencing operator exists, please post, as I (and I'm sure others) are curious.

[Drakla]

If I've understood your idea rightly then you don't need to dereference it, as anything passed by reference into $result is essentially the object itself so just use $result.