On the job today I had a argue with a collage about passing large data between scopes. The myth was that reference uses less memory/CPU usage when passing between 2 scopes. We build a proof of concept who was right... so:
function by_return($dummy=null) {
$dummy = str_repeat("1",100 * 1024 * 1024);
return $dummy;
}
function by_reference(&$dummy) {
$dummy = null;
$dummy = str_repeat("1",100 * 1024 * 1024);
}
echo memory_get_usage()."/".memory_get_peak_usage()."
";
//1 always returns: 105493696/105496656
$nagid = by_return();
echo memory_get_usage()."/".memory_get_peak_usage()."
";
unset($nagid);
//2 always returns: 105493696/210354184 even if we comment 1st part
by_reference($dummy);
echo memory_get_usage()."/".memory_get_peak_usage()."
";
unset($dummy);
But it seems that by reference it consumes more memory according to function "memory_get_peak_usage()"
As you see, using large data for returning is much smarter than using as reference but the question is, why? Any enlightening is welcomed :)