title: PHP Object Creation and Memory Usage
body: <p>A basic dummy class:</p>
  
  <pre><code>class foo
  {
      var $bar = 0;
      function foo() {}
      function boo() {}
  }
  echo memory_get_usage();
  echo "\n";
  $foo = new foo();
  echo memory_get_usage();
  echo "\n";
  unset($foo);
  echo memory_get_usage();
  echo "\n";
  $foo = null; 
  echo memory_get_usage();
  echo "\n";
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Outputs:</p>
  
  <pre><code>$ php test.php
  353672
  353792
  353792
  353792
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Now, I know that PHP docs say that memory won't be freed until it is needed (hitting the ceiling).  However, I wrote this up as a small test, because I've got a much longer task, using a much bigger object, with many instances of that object.  And the memory just climbs, eventually running out and stopping execution.  Even though these large objects do take up memory, since I destroy them after I'm done with each one (serially), it should not run out of memory (unless a single object exhausts the entire space for memory, which is not the case).</p>
  
  <p>Thoughts?</p>