Function Problem

[Owen]

Now, I'll admit I'm used to Perl, but this gets me. Why oh why does this not work? It's so simple, I'm embarassed even asking about it. It just makes no sense.

<?
$q = ":";

function test($x) {
        $q .= $x;
}

test("hello");
test("hi");

echo($q);

?>

I know it's something obvious, so what is it?

Owen

[freakysid]

Hehe, I'm guessing your expected results were:
:hellohi
but your actual results are
:

Is this right? This is because the global variable $q is not in scope inside function test($x) and so the variable $q inside that function is a completely different variable with local scope. Two solutions:

a) Quick and dirty solution:

function test($x) {
   global $q;
   $q .= $x;
} 

More pure from a design perspective:

function test($x, &$q) {
   $q .= $x;
} 

[Owen]

Haha! Thanks for the quick response. Just what I was looking for (as I said, I'm too used to perl (and I guess java too))

Thanks,
Owen