Zval¶
ZVAL is a C structure, that represents data in PHP. It is a structure, which is never directly used from PHP code.
It may be access with debug_zval_dump() function, for debugging purposes. It is useful to debug PHP engine, or extensions.
<?php
// From the manual
$var1 = 'Hello';
$var1 .= ' World';
$var2 = $var1;
debug_zval_dump($var1);
// displays string(11) "Hello World" refcount(3)
?>
See also debug_zval_dump