Question

Why is the following code ‘crashing’ in PHP?

$normal_array       = array(); $array_of_arrayrefs = array( &$normal_array );  end( $array_of_arrayrefs )['one'] = 1; // choking on this one 

The expected result is that the final code line appends $normal_array with key one having value 1 but there is no output what so ever, not even prints preceeding this code. In the real context of this scenario I use end() function to always append to the last array reference.

Answer 1

This doesn’t crash, it just contains a syntax error:

end( $array_of_arrayrefs )['one'] = 1; 

Unfortunately, you cannot treat function return values as arrays in PHP. You have to assign the value explicitly. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work here because end makes a copy of the returned value.