Question

I’ve been reading around on SO, and elsewhere, however I can’t seem to find anything conclusive.

Is there any way to effectively carry references through this call stack, resulting in the desired functionality as described in the example below? While the example doesn’t try to solve it, it certainly illustrates the problem:

class TestClass{
    // surely __call would result similarly
    public static function __callStatic($function, $arguments){
        return call_user_func_array($function, $arguments);
    }
}

// note argument by reference
function testFunction(&$arg){
    $arg .= 'bar';
}

$test = 'foo';
TestClass::testFunction($test);

// expecting: 'foobar'
// getting:   'foo' and a warning about the reference
echo $test;

---

For the sake of inspiring a potential resolution, I’m going to add summary details here:

Focusing on only call_user_func_array(), we can determine that (at least with PHP 5.3.1) you cannot implicitly pass arguments by reference:

function testFunction(&$arg){
    $arg .= 'bar';
}

$test = 'foo';
call_user_func_array('testFunction', array($test));
var_dump($test);
// string(3) "foo" and a warning about the non-reference parameter

By explicitly passing the array element $test as a reference, we can alleviate this:

call_user_func_array('testFunction', array(&$test));
var_dump($test);
// string(6) "foobar"

When we introduce the class with __callStatic(), an explicit call-time parameter by reference seems to carry through as I expected, but deprecation warnings are issued (in my IDE):

class TestClass{
    public static function __callStatic($function, $arguments){
        return call_user_func_array($function, $arguments);
    }
}

function testFunction(&$arg){
    $arg .= 'bar';
}

$test = 'foo';
TestClass::testFunction(&$test);
var_dump($test);
// string(6) "foobar"

Omission of the reference operator in TestClass::testFunction() results in $test being passed by value to __callStatic(), and of course is passed by value as an array element to testFunction() via call_user_func_array(). This results in a warning, since testFunction() expects a reference.

Hacking around, some additional details have surfaced. The __callStatic() definition, if written to return by reference (public static function &__callStatic()) has no visible effect. Furthermore, recasting the elements of the $arguments array in __callStatic() as references we can see that call_user_func_array() works somewhat as expected:

class TestClass{
    public static function __callStatic($function, $arguments){
        foreach($arguments as &$arg){}
        call_user_func_array($function, $arguments);
        var_dump($arguments);
        // array(1) {
        //   [0]=>
        //   &string(6) "foobar"
        // }
    }
}

function testFunction(&$arg){
    $arg .= 'bar';
}

$test = 'foo';
TestClass::testFunction($test);
var_dump($test);
// string(3) "foo"

These results are expected, as $test is no longer passed by reference, the change is not passed back into it’s scope. However, this confirms that call_user_func_array() is in fact working as expected, and that the issue is certainly confined to the calling magic.

Upon further reading, it appears it may be a “bug” in PHP’s handling of user functions, and the __call()/__callStatic() magic. I’ve perused the bug database for existing or related issues, and had found one, but haven’t been able to locate it again. I’m considering issuing another report, or a request for the existing report to be reopened.

Answer 1

This is a fun one.

TestClass::testFunction(&$string);

This works, but it also throws a call-time-pass-by-reference warning.

The main issue is that __callStatic‘s second argument comes in by value. It’s creating a copy of the data, unless that data is already a reference.

We can duplicate the calling error thusly:

call_user_func_array('testFunction', array( $string ));
// PHP Warning:  Parameter 1 to testFunction() expected to be a reference, value given

call_user_func_array('testFunction', array( &$string ));
echo $string;
// 'helloworld'

I tried to modify the __callStatic method to copy the array deeply by reference, but that didn’t work either.

I’m pretty sure that the immediate copy caused by __callStatic is going to be a killer here, and that you won’t be able to do this without enough hoop jumping to make it a bit sticker, syntax-wise.