Need help to understand this code

[getmizanur]

elloo,

 

i saw this code today and it struck some interest in me 'cause i had not seen this style of coding in foreach statement before.

 

class Test
  {
          public $testString = "value";
          public $testString1 = "value1";
          private $testString2 = "value2";
  
          public function &do_something()
          {   
                  eval('$rtn=new ' . get_class($this) . ';');

                  foreach($this as $prop => $val)
                  {   
                          $rtn->$prop=$val;
                  }   
  
                  return $rtn;
          }   
  }
$obj = new Test();
print_r($obj->do_something());

 

i'm tiny bit baffled by the line

 

$rtn->$prop=$val

 

what does the function &do_somthing() do?

 

many thanks in advance

[phpchamps]

It creates the object of the class Test. sets up the properties of the class with their corresponding values and returns back the object by reference.

 

So, line

 eval('$rtn=new ' . get_class($this) . ';'); 

 

creates the object of test class. foreach sets the properties values and return statement returns the object by reference.

[ignace]

do_something doesn't need the reference-operator (&) as objects are always passed by reference. do_something clones the current object and returns it, so the same as:

 

function do_something() {
  return clone $this;
}

 

do_something is unnecessary here as you can just do:

 

$test = new Test();
$test2 = clone $test;

[getmizanur]

Thanks guys. I thought it as much that it creates an new instance of itself.

[ignace]

Thanks guys. I thought it as much that it creates an new instance of itself.

 

It creates a clone of the existing instance. If you are using PHP5 (and you should as PHP4 is deprecated) I highly advise you to drop this code and use the clone keyword instead.