Unexpected observation: var_dump() of an array is flagging referenced elements… since when?

Question

I\'ve just been running some simple debug tests against arrays, and noticed that when I do a var_dump() of an array, the output is flagging any element in the array that is

Answer 1

Not sure if this answers your question, but you can use

debug_zval_dump($array);

to get the refcount:

array(4) refcount(2){ 
    [0]=> long(1) refcount(1) 
    [1]=> &long(2) refcount(2) 
    [2]=> long(3) refcount(1) 
    [3]=> &long(4) refcount(2) 
} 

Also see this Article by Derick Rethans (PHP Core Dev) about Refcounting.