How to return a class variable as a reference (&/ampersand) in PHP?

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This is sample of my code.\[code\]class SomeClass extends SomeOtherClass{function __construct($input){parent::__construct($input);$this->conn = new mysqli('a','b','c','d');}function getConnection(){return &$this->conn;}}\[/code\]My main object is that i want to return the MySQLi connection by referencing it instead of creating another MySQLi class.