&, in Joomla api, return reference to existing object

Most of joomla api return reference, such as:

In this example, the current date and time is retrieved and output in the current default locale format.

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$date =& JFactory::getDate();

echo 'Current date and time is: ' . $date->toFormat() . "\n";

If the current language is English then this will output something like

Current date and time is: 2008-11-22 18:14:08

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This is because the returned object will update the existing one, while not creating new global one, except the object not created yet.

As explained here, in api.joomla.org:

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getApplication (line 34)

Get a application object

Returns a reference to the global JApplication object, only creating it if it doesn't already exist.

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