What does & before the function name signify?

Question

What does the & before the function name signify?

Does that mean that the $result is returned by reference rather than by value? If yes then is it correct? As I remember you cannot return a reference to a local variable as it vanishes once the function exits.

function &query($sql) {  // ...  $result = mysql_query($sql);  return $result; } 

Also where does such a syntax get used in practice ?

Answer 1

Does that mean that the $result is returned by reference rather than by value?

Yes.

Also where does such a syntax get used in practice ?

This is more prevalent in PHP 4 scripts where objects were passed around by value by default.