How to call a function on a variable in PHP?
<p>I am having to do:</p>

<pre>
$sourceElement['description'] = htmlspecialchars_decode($sourceElement['description']);
</pre>

<p>I want to avoid that redundant mention of the variable name. I tried:</p>

<pre>
htmlspecialchars_decode(&$sourceElement['description']);
</pre>

<p>and</p>

<pre>
call_user_func('htmlspecialchars_decode', &$sourceElement['description']);
</pre>

<p>That did not work. Is this possible in PHP? Call a function <em>on</em> a variable?</p>
