What does an & symbol mean in a function's parameters?

[music_lp90]

Hi, I'm trying to modify a component in Joomla, could someone tell me what the & symbol means when it is placed in a function's parameters?Like this: function botMosImage( $published, &$row, &$params, $page=0 )So $row and $params have the & symbol before them.Thanks!

[justsomeguy]

It passes the variable by reference instead of by value. Normally variables are passed by value, so if you have a variable that contains the number 5, and you pass that to a function, it passes the number 5 (the value). When you pass by reference, it passes the memory address of the variable (or equivalent in PHP, probably a symbol table ID or something) instead, so when the function modifies the variable the changes are visible outside of the function as well.

<?phpfunction testfunc($var1, &$var2){  $var1++;  $var2++;}$a = 0; $b = 0;testfunc($a, $b);echo $a . " " . $b; // "0 1"?>

In that case the echo statement will print 0 and 1. $a is still 0 because it was passed by value, but since $b was passed by reference then incrementing it inside the function increments the variable that was passed to the function.

[music_lp90]

Ok, I got it now. Thanks!