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On the job today I had an arguement with a collage about passing large data between scopes. The myth was that reference uses less memory/CPU usage when passing between 2 scopes. We build a proof of concept who was right... so: function by_return($dummy=null) { $dummy = str_repeat("1",100 * 1024 * 1024); return $dummy; } function by_reference(&$dummy) { $dummy = null; $dummy = str_repeat("1",100 * 1024 * 1024); } echo memory_get_usage()."/".memory_get_peak_usage()."\n"; //1 always returns: 105493696/105496656 $nagid = by_return(); echo memory_get_usage()."/".memory_get_peak_usage()."\n"; unset($nagid); //2 always returns: 105493696/210354184 even if we comment 1st part by_reference($dummy); echo memory_get_usage()."/".memory_get_peak_usage()."\n"; unset($dummy); But it seems that by reference it consumes more memory according to function "memory_get_peak_usage()" As you see, using large data for returning is much smarter than using as reference but the question is, why? Any enlightening is welcomed :)

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