CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phppass-by-reference
elite5472
elite5472

Reputation: 2184

Pass by reference, with a variable numbers of parameters in PHP?

I have a function that takes a variable number of parameters, and I have to pass them by reference to another function.

Such as

function my_function($arg0, $arg1, $arg2, ...)
{
    my_other_function(&$arg0, &$arg1, &$arg2, ...); 
}

So that when I pass things by reference to my_function, my_other_function also gets them by reference.

Is there a way to do this?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 122

Answers (2)

hakre
hakre

Reputation: 197795

Technically you are not doing this:

function my_function($arg0, $arg1, $arg2, ...)
{
    my_other_function(&$arg0, &$arg1, &$arg2, ...); 
}

but this:

function my_function(&$arg0, &$arg1, &$arg2, ...)
{
    my_other_function($arg0, $arg1, $arg2, ...); 
}

However as @johannes already wrote, there is no good support for variable number of arguments that are references in PHP (and who could know better). func_get_argsDocs for example does not work with references.

Instead make use of the suggestion to pass all references via an array parameter. That works.

function my_function(array $args)
{
    my_other_function($args); 
}

Upvotes: 1

johannes
johannes

Reputation: 15969

I wonder why you need this. In general references are bad in PHP.

If you really want to do this the only proper way (ignoring call-time pass-by-ref hacks, which won't work with PHP 5.4 anymore anyways) is to use an array wrapping the parameters:

function myfunc(array $data) {
    $data[0] += 42;
    /* ... */
}

$var = 0;
myfunc(array(&$var /*, ... */));
echo $var; // prints 42

For passing to the other function you can then use call_user_func_array()

Upvotes: 3

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