What are the advantages of using references in PHP to access and manipulate elements in a multi-dimensional array representing a folder structure?

When working with a multi-dimensional array representing a folder structure in PHP, using references can be advantageous as it allows for direct access and manipulation of elements without creating unnecessary copies of the data. This can improve performance and memory efficiency, especially when dealing with large arrays. 

// Sample multi-dimensional array representing a folder structure
$folders = [
    'folder1' => [
        'subfolder1' => [
            'file1.txt',
            'file2.txt'
        ],
        'subfolder2' => [
            'file3.txt'
        ]
    ],
    'folder2' => [
        'file4.txt'
    ]
];

// Using references to access and manipulate elements in the array
$folder = &$folders['folder1'];
$folder['subfolder1'][] = 'file4.txt';

print_r($folders);

Keywords

PHP references multi-dimensional array folder structure manipulation

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