What does it mean to start a PHP function with an ampersand?
oop, php
Solution
An ampersand before a function name means the function will return a reference to a variable instead of the value.
Returning by reference is useful when you want to use a function to find to which variable a reference should be bound. Do not use return-by-reference to increase performance. The engine will automatically optimize this on its own. Only return references when you have a valid technical reason to do so.
See Returning References.
Problem
I'm using the Facebook library with this code in it: ``` class FacebookRestClient { ... public function &users_hasAppPermission($ext_perm, $uid=null) { return $this->call_method('facebook.users.hasAppPermission', array('ext_perm' => $ext_perm, 'uid' => $uid)); } ... } ``` What does the & at the beginning of the function definition mean, and how do I go about using a library like this (in a simple example)