The PHP Function Imagedestroy
The php function imagedestroy is an inbuilt PHP function used to destroy images and free any memory associated with them. This function is used to prevent any lingering images from causing issues when the web server shuts down or the script exits abnormally.
The imagedestroy() function takes a single parameter, which is the image identifier returned by the imagecreate() function. The image identifier is unique for each image and it cannot be reused by any other images. Once the imagedestroy() function has been called, the image will no longer exist in memory and you can no longer access it.
This is a very useful function to have as it helps to prevent memory leaks and protects you from possible errors. However, it should be noted that this will only work if your script does not abort before reaching the call to imagedestroy() (for example, a user may click their browsers stop button).
Image optimization is a crucial factor in website performance and page loading speed. PageDetox offers an image compression service that will reduce the size of your image files to help them load faster, and this is an excellent option for large websites with lots of images.
To illustrate the use of these PHP functions, this article will demonstrate a simple method for creating an image place-holder, such as a rollover button. The image will display a red box and the text 'X' but you could change this to just about anything. This method uses GD, the most commonly used image-processing library in PHP, which will be included with most standard PHP installations.