<?php

function printUsedMemory(&$arr) // <----- explicit, user-land, pass-by-reference
{
    $start_memory = memory_get_usage();

    $arr[0] = 1; // WRITE!

    echo memory_get_usage() - $start_memory; // let's see the memory used whilst reading
}

$x = array_fill(0, 10000, 1);
printUsedMemory($x);

24