It doesn't seem to be possible to replace a passed object references with a different one.

I expected the following code to print "5":

class a{
    var $val;
    function a($val){ $this->val = $val;}
}
function replace(&$src, &$dest){
    $dest =& $src;
}
$src = new a(2);
$dest = new a(1);
replace($src,$dest);
$src->val=5;
echo $dest->val;

In stead it prints "1".
Changing the '=&' to '=', it prints '2', as expected.
Surely this must be a bug? If not, is there really no way to get the reference across?

I need this for building trees: passing the current node pointer, have the function change the tree and make the ref point to a new current node. I can work around it by returning the new reference in stead, but that only works for one ref.

Using binary installer from website.