Quick Comparative Study
These cousin languages bear a strong resemblance as well as clearly distinctive traits:

	C++	PHP
Class	Class MyClass : public BaseClass {}	class Class MyClass extends BaseClass {}
Inheritance	Multiple	Simple
Constructor	MyClass() {}	function MyClass() {}
Destructor	˜MyClass() {}	None
Parameter Passing	By value but widespread use of pointers make it equivalent to references (references are also supported).	Passing objects by value by default has been making PHP the odd language out. PHP 5 will bring it in line with other object languages.
-> operator	Pointer to class or struct member.	Access to class member (would be "dot" in many languages, but dot is already string concatenation operator). Pointers are absent in PHP.
f()->g() calls	Can be arbitrarily nested.	Will be supported by PHP 5. Until then use saved returned value (a two-steps process) $r=&f(); // step 1 $r->g(); // step 2
Type system	Statically typed.	Dynamically typed.
Strings	Not a native type (ASCIIZ).	Natively supported.
Arrays	Static	Dynamic— - Associative
Garbage collector	None, ; manage memory the hard way.	All system resources are garbage garbage-collected.
Preprocessor	Very elaborate.	Absent—define() supported.
Language level	L3G with L4G-like libraries.	L4G, sometimes strongly reminiscent of L3G.