Using __set with arrays solved, but why?

Question

Having done a bit of research, I eventually came across the answer to a question I was soon to ask here anyways; How do you work with arrays via the __get and <

Answer 1

In PHP when you return a value from a function you can consider it making a copy of that value (unless it's a class). In the case of __get unless you return the actual thing you want to edit, all the changes are made to a copy which is then discarded.