At 11:26 PM -0700 3/16/05, Luke Palmer wrote: > > For each of the above cases, is a copy of or a reference to the >> attribute returned? For each, will the calling code be able to >> modify $obj's attributes by modifying the return values, or not? > >Well if you're making accessors, why the heck are you making them >private? But I can't really answer your question, because it depends on >how you write the accessors. I am writing accessors to mediate with the attributes, which are all private, and whose implementation may change over time. What I want, in the normal case, is that calling code which invokes my methods will get a copy of attributes which it can modify, that won't affect the original attribute values. When I last asked a related question here, I was told that simply returning an attribute will allow the caller to modify the original attribute by default. I wanted to make sure this didn't happen. It is possible that there was a misunderstanding regarding the previous question, and the default action is in fact a copy. -- Darren DuncanThread Previous | Thread Next