please help me with the my OOP PHP doubt?

Question

I have the foll prog

class Person {
  var $name;
  function Person () {

  }
}

$fred = new Person;
$fred->name = "Fred";
$barney =& new Person;
$barney->name = "Barney";

echo $barney->name;
echo $fred->name;

both the echo statements give the right same output ie "Fred" and "Barney" so whats the use of giving & while declaring $barney. what does "&" refer to here?

THanks

Answer 1

References in PHP4 (http://www.php.net/manual/en/oop4.newref.php)

It means 'by reference.' It becomes synonymous, rather than a copy of (further reading). Also, the new way to write a constructor is not to use the same name as the class itself, instead, you use the __construct() function:

class Person {

  function __construct() {
    // setup shop
  }

}

Also, be sure to use Visiblity properly by assigning certain methods and properties as 'public,' 'private,' 'protected,' etc.

Answer 2

It passes the variable as a reference but this is no longer needed in PHP5+.

Answer 3

See References Explained in the PHP Manual.

Is there any particular reason why you are still using PHP4? It is no longer supported and PHP5s OOP is much more solid and capable.