Re: PHP 4.0 Bug #8889: Memory is not being freed.

Hi Rasmus, It is not a leak exactly but more of a greed. It seems to be a semi-intentional but not necessary thing. It seems that the way Zend/PHP is allocating memory is not allowing it to be returned to the system. Once PHP has some memory it will not let it go, but it will reuse it. So, if a script takes up a good chunk of memory, it is never returned to the system unless that httpd process is killed or dies. There is a thread that describes what happens and a discussion on how to change Zend/PHP to not do this. Here is the link: http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=php-dev&m=97923602322593&w=2 Now, being the 133t C hacker that I am NOT, I do not dare dive into this. However, I did use the recommendations given in this thread and it appeared to have a definite effect on the performance of my server. It did however, as the author warned, make PHP unstable. I fear that a deep look into the way that memory is being used will have to take place to really find this problem. I am willing to use phorum.org as a guinea pig for test scripts that cause this or whatever I can do to help fix this problem. Believe me, I think you know how much I love PHP, I did everything I could to not blame PHP for this. I have updated Red Hat (glibc and gcc), Apache (btw, static pages don't cause the growth), and anything else I could think of to solve it. Brian Moon ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Phorum Dev Team - http://phorum.org Making better forums with PHP ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rasmus Lerdorf" <rasmus@linuxcare.com> To: "Filip Sielimowicz" <sielim@wp-sa.pl> Cc: <brian@phorum.org>; <php-dev@lists.php.net> Sent: Saturday, January 27, 2001 11:53 PM Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] PHP 4.0 Bug #8889: Memory is not being freed. > > PS. Hey, guys from the php-dev. Don't you have anything > > to say ? Please do that ! > > Please do what? > > You should try to figure out what is leaking memory on you. None of my > servers are leaking. > > -Rasmus > >