Understanding References and Copies in PHP
By Marian Pop
I spent hours debugging a problem that came down to a single character. A function was modifying an array that should have been unchanged. I checked everything from the function logic, the calling code, to the data itself. Everything looked correct. Finally, I spotted an ampersand in the foreach loop from code I’d written months earlier and forgotten about – hours for one character. by Marian Pop
This article was originally published in the March 2026 issue of PHP Architect magazine. To read the complete article please subscribe or purchase the complete issue.



Leave a comment
Use the form below to leave a comment: