Re: Memory usage of variables in Functions/Methods

Robert Cummings wrote:

On Tue, 2003-10-07 at 22:44, Gerard Samuel wrote:

The question is what happens to local variables when the code leaves a function/method as far as memory is concerned. Does it *silently* unset (free the allocated memory) the local variables, or does it make sense to hardcode unset() to garbage these local variables? Thanks function foo() { $bar = 'some large value'; unset($bar); } --------- function foo() { $bar = 'some large value'; }

AFAIK when the reference count (both explicit and implicit due to copying optimizations) hits 0, the variable is deleted. Thus within a function if you declare the variable within the function and it isn't referenced anywhere else, then it is destroyed when the function's context is destroyed. Thanks, pretty much what I was looking for...