Inspectopedia
 
2025.2
  1. All Inspections
  2. PHP
  3. Probable bugs
  4. Pass parameter by reference
PHP

Pass parameter by reference

Error
Last modified: Last modified: 18 September 2025

Reports the arguments in a function/method call that cannot be passed by reference.

Only variables and references returned from functions can be passed by reference. See Passing by Reference (php.net) for details.

Locating this inspection

By ID

Can be used to locate inspection in e.g. Qodana configuration files, where you can quickly enable or disable it, or adjust its settings.

PhpPassByRefInspection
Via Settings dialog

Path to the inspection settings via IntelliJ Platform IDE Settings dialog, when you need to adjust inspection settings directly from your IDE.

Settings or Preferences | Editor | Inspections | PHP | Probable bugs

Suppressing Inspection

You can suppress this inspection by placing the following comment marker before the code fragment where you no longer want messages from this inspection to appear:

note

Actual comment syntax will depend on the code language you are working with

More detailed instructions as well as other ways and options that you have can be found in the product documentation:

Inspection Details

By default bundled with:

IntelliJ IDEA 2025.2, PhpStorm 2025.2, Qodana for JVM 2025.2, Qodana for PHP 2025.2,