Magento call-time error - php

Question

Whenever i add an extension to Magento following error occurs:
Fatal error: Call-time pass-by-reference has been removed in
C:\xampp1\htdocs\magento\app\code\community\Bricks\Xmlbrowser\Helper\Data.php
on line 39
I am using Magento 1.8.00-alpha1
public function searchFiles($dir, $str, $filesList = array()) {
$dir = rtrim($dir, '\\\/').DS;
$files = scandir($dir);
foreach ($files as $file) {
if (is_dir($dir.$file)) {
if (($file != '.') && ($file != '..')) {
$this->searchFiles($dir.$file, $str, &$filesList);
}
}
else {
$needToSearch = true;
if ($this->_file_types && is_array($this->_file_types)) {
$needToSearch = in_array(strtolower(pathinfo($file, PATHINFO_EXTENSION)), $this->_file_types);
}
if ($needToSearch) {
$fileContent = file_get_contents($dir.$file);
if ($needToSearch) {
$fileContent = file_get_contents($dir.$file);
$result = $this->_case_sensitive? strpos($fileContent, $str) : stripos($fileContent, $str);
if ($result !== FALSE) {
$filesList[] = $dir.$file;
}
}
}
}
return $filesList;
}
}

Answer 1

First, change
$this->searchFiles($dir.$file, $str, &$filesList); // This line is 39
to
$this->searchFiles($dir.$file, $str, $filesList); // This line is 39
Second, change
public function searchFiles($dir, $str, $filesList = array()) {
to
public function searchFiles($dir, $str, &$filesList = array()) {
Third, change the 6th line within the method searchFiles()
$this->searchFiles($dir.$file, $str, &$filesList);
to
$this->searchFiles($dir.$file, $str, $filesList);
This should fix the specific fatal error that you're asking about here.
But...
...even if fixed, most probably just the next fatal error will popup.
Like I aready wrote in the comments, my guess is you're running a PHP 5.4 system, but use Magento 3rd party extensions, which are not PHP 5.4 compatible.
If PHP 5.4 is a must on your target system, I'd recommend to contact the authors of the extensions and ask for 5.4 compatible versions of their extensions, or patches to make them 5.4 compatible. You can of course also try to fix them all by yourself, or hire a developer to do it.
If PHP 5.4 is not mandatory, I'd probably check whether downgrading the system to PHP 5.3.latest won't be the better/cheaper/less time consuming option.