By Reference, Error Or Notice?

Passing a literal by reference to a method causes a Fatal error, while returning a literal by reference only triggers a Notice. This difference in error level is puzzling, given how similar the operations are. It raises the question: why does one completely halt execution, while the other merely issues a warning and continues running?

See Also

• Passing By Reference (PHP manual)

• By reference or by value? [Try me]

PHP Features

• reference

• return

• notice