PHP：这段代码会导致内存泄漏吗？

Question

As I understand, as the reference count of an object becomes 0, PHP's garbage collector takes care of destruction of objects.

I have a utility function for database connections, where I create a PDO object and return the object to the calling script for PDO operations.

Since I have this code all over the place of the webserver scripts, which is going to serve mobile client requests, it is critical I don't overlook a detail and have memory leaks when the app goes live.

Do you see any problems here?

in connectDB.php:

function mySQLConnect() {

    .....
    .....

    try
    {
        $dbh = new PDO($dsn, $user, $password, $options);   // Ref Count=1

        ....
        return $dbh;    

    }
    catch (PDOException $e)
    {
       ....
       return NULL; 

    }
}

in a PHP script:

include 'connectDB.php';

try
{

    $dbh = mySQLConnect();     // Ref Count =2
    ....
    ....

}   //Script Stops, Ref Count becomes 0 and memory is freed- or is it?

catch (Exception $e)
{
   ....
   ....

}   

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

This code will not leak. As soon as you get rid of references, then PHP automatically collects the garbage. The code above is a very simple case for PHP - all the references are merely local variables. So finishing the function or the script removes the reference automatically, you don't need to do anything for that.

And this line is not a point of concern:

$dbh = mySQLConnect(); // Ref Count =2

Actually, ref count there will be 1. Because, when mySQLConnect() returned the value, its variable $dbh was released, and thus reference count to the PDO object was decreased - it became 0 (but GC was not invoked yet, as the function return was in progress). At the same time the variable $dbh in the PHP script got that PDO object, thus reference to it was increased and became 1.

Also this line is also not a concern:

//Script Stops, Ref Count becomes 0 and memory is freed- or is it?

The major rule here is that when a PHP script finishes - then all the objects are freed by PHP. Ref counts do not matter at this phase. PHP returns all the memory it got, because it knows that the work is over, and the variables will not be needed anymore. The next time when the PHP script is invoked, it starts from scratch - with no variables, no ref counts, no data from the previous execution.