unsetting variables - when to and when not to

defnet

Yo guys,
I try to unset most variables that I know I will no longer need to minimize the server load. However, I wanna know if it is still necessary to unset the variables that you declare within a function.

Aren't those variables who were declared within a function, automatically unset whenever the function completes?

BTW: Is unsetting variables really a good practice or is it not really necessary in most cases...

Star Wars Fanatic

It's not really necessary, and yea, the variables in functions are automatically unset once the function is finished running.

If you have a lot of variables, or you want to use a variable again without having to worry about previous contents, you can use the unset() method.

Mgccl

Usually you will only need to unset() a variable when your memory is too low
for example, I have only used it in something involved images, but generally images have a imagedestroy() function.

Sometimes, there is a possibility you create a HUGE array (3000 key) and going to use up all your memory(on some machines, only 8MB is allowed for PHP), then you have to use the unset() when you don't need the array(free the memory)

AOP Web Development

as a practice for good programming it is better to free all the variables that are not usable inorder not to suffer the server of the website.