Detecting whether a PHP variable is a reference / referenced

Question

Is there a way in PHP to determine whether a given variable is a reference to another variable and / or referenced by another variable? I appreciate that it might not be po

Answer 1

Full working example:

function EqualReferences(&$first, &$second){
    if($first !== $second){
        return false;
    } 
    $value_of_first = $first;
    $first = ($first === true) ? false : true; // modify $first
    $is_ref = ($first === $second); // after modifying $first, $second will not be equal to $first, unless $second and $first points to the same variable.
    $first = $value_of_first; // unmodify $first
    return $is_ref;
}

$a = array('foo');
$b = array('foo');
$c = &$a;
$d = $a;

var_dump(EqualReferences($a, $b)); // false
var_dump(EqualReferences($b, $c)); // false
var_dump(EqualReferences($a, $c)); // true
var_dump(EqualReferences($a, $d)); // false
var_dump($a); // unmodified
var_dump($b); // unmodified