Are objects in array passed by reference?

Question

in a situation like that below,

class my_class {

    public __construct($params = array()){

        **** do something
    } 

 }

 $other_object = new some_class();

 $object = new my_class(array(
                         'var1' => 'test' 
                         'object' => $other_object));

$other_object will be passed by reference or by value?

Answer 1

Objects are always references, except you clone it explicitly.

You can use spl_object_hash() to retrieve the "object id" and then compare them against each other. Remember, that once an object is removed from the memory by the garbage collector, the ID may get reused.