Thank you for taking the time to write to us, but this is not
a bug. Please double-check the documentation available at
http://www.php.net/manual/ and the instructions on how to report
a bug at http://bugs.php.net/how-to-report.php

DOM objects are just wrappers to underlying libxml2 structures and unless directly 
referenced, i.e. $blah->node = $node, the $node object is no longer referenced 
outside of the function. Appending the node appends the libxml2 node structure to 
the underlying xml tree, does nothing in respect to the DOM object wrapper.

Well, to my way of thinking the the XML document is expressed as a PHP object so it should behave as one in every respect. Here is an example where there is a distinct difference in that behaviour, one that would be unexpected by a PHP programmer who is not intimately acquainted with PHP's internals. I am fairly certain that this difference is undocumented. 

Here is another example which more clearly illustrates the problem. 

<?php

$blah = new stdClass;
function humbug()
{
/* Behaviour changes when uncommented. Think this is a GC bug.
    global $node;
*/

    global $blah;
    $doc = new domDocument('1.0', 'utf-8');
    $blah->doc = $doc;
    $node = $doc->createElement('node');
    $doc->appendChild($node);

    $node->foo = true;

    $obj = new stdClass;
    $blah->obj = $obj;
    $obj->child = new stdClass;
    $obj->child->foo = true;

    echo "Why is this set: ".$blah->doc->firstChild->foo."<BR>";
}

humbug();
echo "When this is not set: ".$blah->doc->firstChild->foo."<BR>\n";
echo "This is Set: ".$blah->obj->child->foo."<BR>\n";



?>