objects passed as reference in php5

Hello Ron,

that's prefectly correct.

regards
marcus

Sunday, August 8, 2004, 1:14:55 PM, you wrote:

i think the object will only cease to exist when all references to it are
gone

"Curt Zirzow" curt@php.net wrote in message
news:20040808022353.GG6522@bagend.shire...

I'm trying to document how objects are passed to functions in php5,
but am running into some troubles.

In the code below the object appears to be a reference but when the
original object is destoyed it still somehow exists. Can someone
explain how this is? I was going to report a bug on this but using
the traditional &$obj usage it works perfectly fine.

class Test {
public $object = null;
public $object1 = null;

function SetVarVal($obj) {
$this->object = $obj;
}

function SetVarRef(&$obj) {
$this->object1 = &$obj;
}

}

$obj1 = new StdClass();

$obj2 = new Test();
$obj2->SetVarVal($obj1);
$obj2->SetVarRef($obj1);

$obj1->foo = 'test'; /* show how obj1's is a ref /
$obj1 = null; / destroy object */

var_dump($obj2->object); /* still has object with ->foo /
var_dump($obj2->object1); / NULL */

Curt

First, let me assure you that this is not one of those shady pyramid
schemes
you've been hearing about. No, sir. Our model is the trapezoid!

--
Best regards,
Marcus mailto:helly@php.net

• 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);

Curt

First, let me assure you that this is not one of those shady pyramid schemes
you've been hearing about. No, sir. Our model is the trapezoid!