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Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2004 20:28:12 +0200
Reply-To: Marcus Boerger <helly@php.net>
Message-ID: <112941408.20040809202812@marcus-boerger.de>
To: Curt Zirzow <curt@php.net>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Re: objects passed as reference in php5
From: helly@php.net (Marcus Boerger)

Hello Curt,

Monday, August 9, 2004, 7:46:07 PM, you wrote:

> * Thus wrote Ron Korving:
>> i think the object will only cease to exist when all references to it are
>> gone

> Well there does seem to be another layer of referencing, since the
> a simple assignment without &$ will simply reference the object but
> in a different way.  The problem I'm running into there doesn't
> seem to be a way to reliably detstroy an object without the
> programmer keeping track of the variable assignments and removing
> those references as well.

> I'm not sure if its possible or even php's responsibility but
> perhaps provide a tool that allow's a programmer to explicity
> destroy an object?  with something like:

>   Destroy($obj);


This is not possible at all. Reference counting + garbage collection
means we do know the exact number of references to an object. Destroying
the referenced object before its reference count goes to zero means that
we leave a reference pointing to nirvana. That would result in a SEGV.

regards
marcus