PHP's assignment by reference is not working as expected

Question

Why the following

class AClass
{
    public function __construct ()
    {
        $this->prop = \"Hello\";
    }
    public function &get ()
    {
                


        

Answer 1

bwoebi is totally right about how PHP references work. Without a dereference operator it would become impossible to know exactly what you mean when using pointers, so PHP has used another approach. This does not, however, mean that what you want is impossible, you just can't do it all inside a function:

class AClass
{
    public function __construct ()
    {
        $this->prop = "Hello";
    }
    public function &get()
    {
        return $this->prop;
    }
    public $prop;
}

function &func($ref)
{
    return $ref->get();
}

$root = new AClass();
$value = &func( $root );
var_dump( $value );
  // string(5) "Hello"
$value = "World";
var_dump( $root->get() );
  // string(5) "World"

http://codepad.org/gU6pfzUO