Passing database connection by reference in PHP

Question

The question is if a database connection should be passed in by reference or by value?

For me I\'m specifically questioning a PHP to MySQL connection, but I think it

Answer 1

It isn't the speed you should be concerned with, but the memory.

In PHP 4, things like database connections and resultsets should be explicitly passed by reference. In PHP 5, this is done automatically, so you don't have to make it explicit.

BTW, singleton methods for creating database handles are a good idea: you can do $db = & Database::Connection(); and always get the correct handle. This saves you from using a global and the static method can do extra magic (like opening it automatically) for you. Just be careful of when your application scales enough that it needs multiple databases: then your magic function will have to know how to hand you back the correct one. IME this is not hugely difficult; the basic way to solve that is for the code layer that needs the DB handle to know how to ask for the correct one.