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Date: Thu, 24 Oct 2013 23:14:21 +0100
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Subject: [RFC] list() Reference Assignment
From: ajf@ajf.me (Andrea Faulds)

Good evening again,

Previously I wrote to this mailing list about my proposal to add 
reference assignment to list() with a new syntax ("[PHP-DEV] Proposal: 
Implement FR #7930 (list() constructor reference assignment)"). I have 
now opened an RFC:

https://wiki.php.net/rfc/list_reference_assignment

In brief, this allows you to write this:

$array = [1, 2];
$a = $array[0];
$b = &$array[1];

Like this instead:

$array = [1, 2];
list($a, &$b) = $array;

Reference assignments with list() work just like normal assignments, and 
you can still skip variables, use nested list()s, and use list() in 
foreach as usual.

There is a patch with a passing test, however a memory leak bug was 
found (thanks Nikita!), and so the patch can't be considered complete or 
final yet. I'm something of a novice at debugging PHP code at the 
moment, so any help fixing that would be appreciated, but I will try to 
fix it when I have more time.

The patch is here: https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=6768

The RFC has been added to the list in Under Discussion.

Any thoughts, suggestions, etc. appreciated.

Regards,
-- 
Andrea Faulds
http://ajf.me/