Unset the parser after calling xml_parser_free() to prevent memory leaks:
<?php
xml_parser_free($parser);
unset($parser);
?>
xml_parser_free
(PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)
xml_parser_free — Free an XML parser
Description
Note:
This function has no effect. Prior to PHP 8.0.0, this function was used to close the resource.
Frees the given XML parser.
Caution
In addition to calling xml_parser_free() when the parsing
is finished, prior to PHP 8.0.0, it was necessary to also explicitly unset the
reference to parser to avoid memory leaks,
if the parser resource is referenced from an object, and this object references
that parser resource.
Parameters
-
parser - A reference to the XML parser to free.
Return Values
Returns true on success or false on failure.
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User Contributed Notes 3 notes
nidzho ¶
8 years ago
dio at edu dot uni-klu dot ac dot at ¶
19 years ago
If you try to free an XML parser while it is still parsing, strange things will happen - your script will "hang" and no output will be sent to the browser. Consider this pseudo-code example:
-------
...
if (!xml_parse($parser)) echo 'XML error';
xml_parser_free($parser);
...
function SomeCallbackWhichWasSetBefore(...)
{
global $parser;
...
if (some_error_happened) xml_parser_free($parser); //problem!
...
}
------
It would be logical that xml_parse would return false if the parser was freed while parsing, right? Wrong! Instead, everything hangs and no output will be sent out (no matter whether output buffering is on or not). It took me more than an hour to figure out why: you cannot free a parser handle that is currently parsing. A simple solution:
-------
$xml_error = false;
if (!xml_parse($parser))
echo 'XML error (directly from parser)';
else if ($xml_error)
echo 'XML error (from some callback function);
xml_parser_free($parser);
...
function SomeCallbackWhichWasSetBefore(...)
{
global $parser;
global $xml_error;
if ($xml_error)
return;
...
if (some_error_occured)
{
$xml_error = false;
return;
}
...
}
-------
If you use this solution you will have to check for $xml_error in every callback function. Essentially what you're doing is that, in case you want to stop parsing because of an error, you continue until xml_parse() is finished (without actually doing anything) and then free the parser and act on the error.
Of course the underlying problem is that you cannot stop a parser while it is parsing. There should be some function like xml_throw_error() or xml_parser_stop() or whatever, but unfortunately there isn't.
php dot net at gwprogramming dot com (George Webb) ¶
21 years ago
I found that with PHP 4.3.4RC1, if you don't call xml_parser_free() before your script ends, some sort of ugliness occurs with the webserver; i.e. the HTTP connection is closed. (The apache error_log says "exit signal Segmentation fault (11)".)
Usually PHP tends to clean up connections you don't explicitly close (e.g. database connections), but in this case apparently it doesn't.
Some web browsers (MSIE for one) do not actually show this problem, so you may not actually notice it. Opera 7.11 does show it, which is how I discovered it.
So don't forget to call xml_parser_free() ... always!
