Memory management

[rperdisc]

Hi,
may anyone explain to me how the PHP manage the memory? I would like to know differences among C++ e PHP... can PHP manage the Heap? Does it use only the System Stack? Does it have a GC like JAVA (all variables are references)?

Thanks,
Giosy

P.S.: Sorry for my bad english 🙁

[btanner]

PHP's memory management really should not be any concern at all.

The great thing about PHP is that ALL memory is de-allocated as soon as a request dies.

So all variables and objects we create are only taking up space until the page we are displaying is complete.

The only time that this should be a concern is:

a) If you are building php extensions
b) If you are writing some sort of daemon or background application that will be alive for a long time.

I am pretty sure PHP uses a very simplistic form of garbage collection using reference counters (tombstones)... but I don't know for sure...

[rperdisc]

Thank you for help 🙂