Paypal SDK

[Redline]

I'm looking into using Website Payments Pro through paypal for transactions, but I'm having a little difficulty understanding everything. There's always been this stigma in regard to accepting online transactions for me. Anyway, I'm looking through example code and came across the following:

PHP Code:

<?php

require_once './request_base.php';

$avrt =& Services_PayPal::getType('AddressVerifyRequestType');
$avrt->setEmail('sdk-buyer@sdk.com');
$avrt->setZip('95100');
$avrt->setStreet('123 Main St');

$response = $caller->AddressVerify($avrt);
var_dump($response);
?>

I've never seen the =& operator, what is that line doing? From the looks of it, that line is initiating a new instance of the Services_PayPal object? Obviously the following lines set the address of the buyer, and send it off for verification?

[DJMaze]

'=&' makes a reference (in C known as pointer) to a data object in memory.
This way you don't duplicate the memory but share the same memory to prevent resource increase.

In case of a Object like

PHP Code:

<?php
$ref =& new Object();

you are working on the base object and NOT a instance.
So if you create an object like this and create another instance, you actualy get all the values of $ref.