As said above references are not pointers.
Following example shows a difference between pointers and references.
This Code
<?
$b = 1;
$a =& $b;
print("<pre>");
print("\$a === \$b: ".(($a === $b) ? "ok" : "failed")."\n");
print("unsetting \$a...\n");
unset($a);
print("now \$a is ".(isset($a) ? "set" : "unset")." and \$b is ".(isset($b) ? "set" : "unset")."\n");
print("</pre>");
$b = 1;
$a =& $b;
print("<pre>");
print("\$a === \$b: ".(($a === $b) ? "ok" : "failed")."\n");
print("unsetting \$b...\n");
unset($b);
print("now \$a is ".(isset($a) ? "set" : "unset")." and \$b is ".(isset($b) ? "set" : "unset")."\n");
print("</pre>");
?>
will produce this output:
---------
$a === $b: ok
unsetting $a...
now $a is unset and $b is set
$a === $b: ok
unsetting $b...
now $a is set and $b is unset
---------
So you see that $a and $b are identical ($a === $b -> true), but if one of both is unset, the other is not effected.
