Does PHP free local variables immediately after the function ends?

Question

The code illustrates better what I\'m asking:

function foo(){

  $var = get_huge_amount_of_data();

  return $var[0];
}


$s = foo();

// is memory freed her         


        

Answer 1

You can see this example on a class, that's because you can "catch" freeing a variable in class' destructor:

class a {
  function __destruct(){
    echo "destructor
";
  }
}

function b(){ // test function
  $c=new a();
  echo 'exit from function b()
';
}

echo "before b()
";
b();
echo "after b()
";

die();

This script outputs:

before b()
exit from function b()
destructor
after b()

So it is now clear that variables are destroyed at function exit.