Call-time pass-by-reference deprecated? - php

Question

I read in many forums to remove the ampersand (&) before any $ listed in a variable, and I did, but doing so removes the functionality of the code I'm using. What should I do?
Demo here.
Code here:
<?php
$val = $_GET['name'];
$path = "./images/".$val."/";
$file_array = array ();
readThisDir ( $path, &$file_array );
echo '<div class="gallery" style="display:block;" id="'.$val.'">';
echo '<ul>';
foreach ( $file_array as $file )
{
if (strstr($file, "png")||strstr($file, "jpg")||strstr($file, "bmp")||strstr($file, "gif"))
{
list($width, $height) = getimagesize($file);
$info = exif_read_data($file);
echo '<li><img src="'.$file.'" width="'.$width.'" height="'.$height.'" alt="'.$file.'"/><span>'.$info['Title'].'<div class="gallerynav">«»</div></span></li>';
}
}
echo '</ul>';
echo '</div>';
function readThisDir ( $path, $arr )
{
if ($handle = opendir($path))
{
while (false !== ($file = readdir($handle)))
{
if ($file != "." && $file != "..")
{
if (is_dir ( $path."/".$file ))
{
readThisDir ($path."/".$file, &$arr);
} else {
$arr[] = $path."/".$file;
}
}
}
closedir($handle);
}
}
?>

Answer 1

You are supposed to mark the pass-by-reference in the function declaration, not where the function is called.
...
function readThisDir ( $path, &$arr )
{ ...

Answer 2

Change
function readThisDir ( $path, $arr )
To
function readThisDir ( $path, &$arr )
And
readThisDir ($path."/".$file, &$arr);
To
readThisDir ($path."/".$file, $arr);
PHP doesn't want you to pass the address of the variable directly to the function.

Answer 3

It doesn't answer your question directly, but you can replace all that code with the following (assuming 5.2+) using RecursiveDirectoryIterator:
$it = new RecursiveIteratorIterator(
new RecursiveDirectoryIterator($path);
);
$files = array();
foreach ($it as $file) {
$files[] = $file->getPathname();
}

Answer 4

Make the function readThisDir to return an array with the file info populated and assign that to the $file_array variable.
something like:
$file_array = readThisDir ($path);
function readThisDir ( $path)
{
$arr = array ();
if ($handle = opendir($path))
{
while (false !== ($file = readdir($handle)))
{
if ($file != "." && $file != "..")
{
if (is_dir ( $path."/".$file ))
{
readThisDir ($path."/".$file, &$arr);
} else {
$arr[] = $path."/".$file;
}
}
}
closedir($handle);
}
return $arr;
}