PHP Function XML Parser Free

The xml_parser_free() function is used to free an XML parser in PHP. This function was added to the XML Parser Extension in PHP 5.1.0, and is part of the core of the language starting with PHP 7.0. This function should be called whenever you are done parsing with a parser (and after any error handling in case of an exception) to avoid memory leaks.

XML is a markup language that structures data for web technologies like RSS Feeds and Podcasts. PHP has several XML parsing functions which create parser objects and define handlers for XML events. These include utf8_decode, utf8_encode, xml_get_current_line_number and xml_error_string.

When using an XML parser, you can use either a tree-based or event-based parser. Tree-based parsers hold the entire XML document in Memory and analyze it to produce the DOM (Tree) elements you can interact with. This type of parser can be good for large documents, but can cause performance issues on smaller ones. Event-based parsers read in a node at a time, so they can be better suited for small XML documents and do not consume as much Memory.

Whichever type of parser you use, you must always call xml_parser_free() when you are finished with it. This will destroy the parser instance you got back from xml_parser_create() and free up the memory it was using. PHP will typically clean up any unused resources, but it is good house-keeping practice to call this function yourself to be sure.