title: Are PHP5 objects passed by reference?
body: <p>I can't seem to get any consistent info on this. Different sources appear to say different things and the venerable php.net itself (<em>appears</em>) not to explicitly state this - although, I must admit, I only had a quick look.</p>
  
  <p>In cases where I am passing around 'heavy' objects, I need to pass by reference, but I don't want to keep typing:</p>
  
  <pre><code>function foo(TypeName&amp; $obj)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>if I can get away with simply</p>
  
  <pre><code>function foo(TypeName $obj)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>So what does the standard say?</p>