On December 12, 2017 8:51:42 AM GMT+01:00, Stanislav Malyshev
<smalys...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Hi!
>
>> The issue, as you well know, is that references disable
>copy-on-write. Thus assume you have code like this:
>>
>> function with_ref(&$a) {
>> count ($a);
>> }
>>
>> function no_ref($a) {
>> count($a);
>> }
>>
>> The count in with_ref() will copy the array, while no_ref() can use
>copy on write and won't actually copy.
>
>Yes, this is an issue, and it'd be good to find a way to solve it. At
>least for count() and other "pure" (however pure can it be in PHP)
>functions it seems possible. But do not think "not using references
>ever" qualifies as a solution :)
For this case there is a good solution: Let the engine be smart and pass by
value :-D
And yes there are a few cases where references might be better: Graph like
structures (while I'd claim objects are nicer, but that's subjective),
capturing by-ref in closures (`use` clause, while many times an object to hold
state can be, subjectively, better, but sometimes you just need a counter or
such) and returning error codes by-ref (if objects or exceptions aren't better,
this most often is more low-level stuff, i.e. in json_decode() I'd see benefits
over json_error_last())
Some years back I spent quite some time with different cases almost always
removing the references gave faster and clearer code (while this proposal to
add & to the call sign takes away some wtf) not only in my opinion, but also
the respective maintainers. Of course with PHP 7 the maths changed a bit, but
fundamentally I stand by my opinion.
johannes
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