Strict Standards: Only variables should be assigned by reference PHP 5.4

Question

I upgraded my PHP version to 5.4 (XAMPP 1.7.3 to 1.8.0). Now I see Strict Standards error, for myDBconnection:

Strict Standards: Only variables should be assigned by reference in C:\xampp\htdocs\alous\include\dbconn.php on line 4

dbconn.php:

<?php
    defined('_VALID') or die('Restricted Access!');

    $conn = &ADONewConnection($config['db_type']); // <--- This Line 4

    if ( !$conn->Connect($config['db_host'],
                         $config['db_user'],
                         $config['db_pass'],
                         $config['db_name'])) {

        echo 'Could not connect to MySQL! Please check your database settings!';
        die();
    }
    $conn->execute("SET NAMES 'utf8'");
?>

Note: I don't need to disable Strict Standards in php.ini with this method error_reporting = E_ALL & ~E_NOTICE & ~E_STRICT! I want to fix my PHP code.

Answer 1

You should remove the & (ampersand) symbol, so that line 4 will look like this:

$conn = ADONewConnection($config['db_type']);

This is because ADONewConnection already returns an object by reference. As per documentation, assigning the result of a reference to object by reference results in an E_DEPRECATED message as of PHP 5.3.0

Answer 2

It's because you're trying to assign an object by reference. Remove the ampersand and your script should work as intended.