Hi,
Im trying to write a modification to send instant e-mails to people if they subscribe to a forum. I am modifying an existing instant notify hack, but I have a security-sensitive forum, and need to make sure no one gets an e-mail by subscribing to a forum they don't belong in. The existing code runs a SQL query, fetches an array of subscribed e-mail addresses, and then starts sending. I want to have a statement that says (pseudo-code):

I'm a java programmer so I have some frame of reference. Searching through the source code I found snippets of code that look like this, but I have no clue whats actually happening here:

I understand the -> operator is to access an object inside a class (right??) but whats the ampersand doing there??? its not passing an arguement by reference (or is it?) Can anyone help me understand whats going on here, not only with PHP but with vB?

Eventually I came up with this... still have yet to test...

Does anyone actually know/can explain how the part works?