Remove reference assignment operator

[octaedro]

Submission Review Guidelines:

• I have followed the WooCommerce Contributing Guidelines and the WordPress Coding Standards.
• I have checked to ensure there aren't other open Pull Requests for the same update/change.
• I have reviewed my code for security best practices.
• Following the above guidelines will result in quick merges and clear and detailed feedback when appropriate.

Changes proposed in this Pull Request:

This PR eliminates the reference assignment operator from the following files:

cross-sells
upsells
related

The presence of the reference assignment operator in these files was causing unexpected behaviors.

Before

Screen.Recording.on.2024-11-21.at.01-11-03.mp4

After

after.mp4

There is a more detailed explanation here.

Closes #42785.

Acknowledgements

A big shoutout to @alexiglesias31 for collaborating on this issue and bringing it to our attention. Your vigilance and contributions are greatly appreciated! 🙌

How to test the changes in this Pull Request:

Using the WooCommerce Testing Instructions Guide, include your detailed testing instructions:

1. Create a new simple product.
2. Go to Pages > Add New Page
3. Add a Shortcode block and paste [product_page id="your-product-id"]. Replace your-product-id with the id of the product you just created.
4. Press Publish and refresh the page.
5. The editor should load the page that is being edited, not the product referred to in the shortcode.

Changelog entry

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Changelog Entry Details

Significance

• Patch
• Minor
• Major

Type

• Fix - Fixes an existing bug
• Add - Adds functionality
• Update - Update existing functionality
• Dev - Development related task
• Tweak - A minor adjustment to the codebase
• Performance - Address performance issues
• Enhancement - Improvement to existing functionality

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Comment

[github-actions]

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[danielwrobert]

@octaedro I've tested and confirmed this change works as expected and, per our discussion in Slack (p1730226517486409-slack-C02FL3X7KR6), it's probably a better approach than manually resetting the query.

It seems possible that these reference assignment operators are the root cause of the bug to begin with and this issue was just not noticed until much later.

[github-actions]

Hi @danielwrobert, @woocommerce/woo-fse

Apart from reviewing the code changes, please make sure to review the testing instructions and verify that relevant tests (E2E, Unit, Integration, etc.) have been added or updated as needed.

You can follow this guide to find out what good testing instructions should look like:
https://github.com/woocommerce/woocommerce/wiki/Writing-high-quality-testing-instructions

[danielwrobert]

Tested again and confirmed everything still works as expected.

Thanks for working on this! 🚀

[alexiglesias31]

Thanks for accepting the collaboration @octaedro @danielwrobert 🚀