mysql_free_result()

[Anon]

the PHP manual says:

"mysql_free_result() only needs to be called if you are concerned about how much memory is being used for queries that return large result sets. All associated result memory is automatically freed at the end of the script's execution."

so my question is, is it good practice to call mysql_free_result() ALL THE TIME, or does it not really matter? could you potentially slow things down by repeatedly calling the function in the middle of execution rather than waitng for it to happen automatically at the end?

i don't know how the parsing process works, hence my question.

-j

[Anon]

I don't think it will hurt to call it. About the only time I use it is if I have to load the entire result set into an array for manipulation anyway (usually some heavy calculations, etc) and, obviously, there isn't a need to have two copies of the data in memory.

More often, tho, a large result set is simple displayed and it's best to do that by looping thru the data, so only one record is duplicated in memory at a time and I don't want to dump the result set before I'm done. By the time I've looped thru the result set, it's usually just a matter of closing </table></body> so not really worth the time.

OTOH, it's probably a good idea to get into good habits....