What does the deprecated message "Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated" mean in PHP?

The deprecated message "Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated" in PHP means that assigning the result of a new object instantiation by reference is no longer recommended and may cause issues in future PHP versions. To solve this issue, simply remove the reference assignment when creating new objects using the "new" keyword.

// Deprecated way of assigning the return value of new by reference
$object =& new ClassName();

// Correct way of creating new objects without reference assignment
$object = new ClassName();