<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <HTML ><HEAD ><TITLE >What References Are Not</TITLE ><META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.7"><LINK REL="HOME" TITLE="Manual PHP" HREF="index.html"><LINK REL="UP" TITLE="References Explained" HREF="language.references.html"><LINK REL="PREVIOUS" TITLE="What References Do" HREF="language.references.whatdo.html"><LINK REL="NEXT" TITLE="Passing by Reference" HREF="language.references.pass.html"><META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-2"></HEAD ><BODY CLASS="sect1" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#840084" ALINK="#0000FF" ><DIV CLASS="NAVHEADER" ><TABLE SUMMARY="Header navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TH COLSPAN="3" ALIGN="center" >Manual PHP</TH ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="language.references.whatdo.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Înapoi</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="80%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="bottom" >Cap. 15. References Explained</TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="language.references.pass.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Înainte</A ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"></DIV ><DIV CLASS="sect1" ><H1 CLASS="sect1" ><A NAME="language.references.arent" >What References Are Not</A ></H1 ><P > As said before, references aren't pointers. That means, the following construct won't do what you expect: <DIV CLASS="informalexample" ><P ></P ><A NAME="AEN3612" ></A ><TABLE BORDER="0" BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" CELLPADDING="5" ><TR ><TD ><code><font color="#000000"> <font color="#0000BB"><?php<br /></font><font color="#007700">function </font><font color="#0000BB">foo </font><font color="#007700">(&</font><font color="#0000BB">$var</font><font color="#007700">)<br />{<br /> </font><font color="#0000BB">$var </font><font color="#007700">=& </font><font color="#0000BB">$GLOBALS</font><font color="#007700">[</font><font color="#DD0000">"baz"</font><font color="#007700">];<br />}<br /></font><font color="#0000BB">foo</font><font color="#007700">(</font><font color="#0000BB">$bar</font><font color="#007700">); <br /></font><font color="#0000BB">?></font> </font> </code></TD ></TR ></TABLE ><P ></P ></DIV > </P ><P > What happens is that <VAR CLASS="varname" >$var</VAR > in <VAR CLASS="varname" >foo</VAR > will be bound with <VAR CLASS="varname" >$bar</VAR > in caller, but then it will be re-bound with <VAR CLASS="varname" >$GLOBALS["baz"]</VAR >. There's no way to bind <VAR CLASS="varname" >$bar</VAR > in the calling scope to something else using the reference mechanism, since <VAR CLASS="varname" >$bar</VAR > is not available in the function <VAR CLASS="varname" >foo</VAR > (it is represented by <VAR CLASS="varname" >$var</VAR >, but <VAR CLASS="varname" >$var</VAR > has only variable contents and not name-to-value binding in the calling symbol table). </P ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="NAVFOOTER" ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"><TABLE SUMMARY="Footer navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="language.references.whatdo.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Înapoi</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="index.html" ACCESSKEY="H" >Acasã</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="language.references.pass.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Înainte</A ></TD ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" >What References Do</TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="language.references.html" ACCESSKEY="U" >Sus</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" >Passing by Reference</TD ></TR ></TABLE ></DIV ></BODY ></HTML >