PHP: check if object/array is a reference

Question

Sorry to ask, its late and I can't figure a way to do it... anyone can help?

$users = array(
    array(
        "name" => "John",
        "age"   => "20"
    ),
    array(
        "name" => "Betty",
        "age"   => "22"
    )
);

$room = array(
    "furniture" => array("table","bed","chair"),
    "objects"   => array("tv","radio","book","lamp"),
    "users" => &$users
);

var_dump $room shows:

...
'users' => &
...

Which means "users" is a reference.

I would like to do something like this:

foreach($room as $key => $val) {
    if(is_reference($val)) unset($room[$key]);
}

The main goal is to copy the array WITHOUT any references.

Is that possible?

Thank you.

Answer 1

You can test for references in a multi-dimensional array by making a copy of the array, and then altering and testing each entry in turn:

$roomCopy = $room;
foreach ($room as $key => $val) {
  $roomCopy[$key]['_test'] = true;
  if (isset($room[$key]['_test'])) {
    // It's a reference
    unset($room[$key]);
  }
}
unset($roomCopy);

With your example data, $room['furniture'] and $roomCopy['furniture'] will be separate arrays (as $roomCopy is a copy of $room), so adding a new key to one won't affect the other. But, $room['users'] and $roomCopy['users'] will be references to the same $users array (as it's the reference that's copied, not the array), so when we add a key to $roomCopy['users'] it is visible in $room['users'].