Question

Im currently building a php framework… again.

I have a class called config.

its pretty simple, its called like so:

$conf = config::get('general');

$conf is now an array full of config goodies.

the class sceleton is like so:

final class config {

private static $configs = array();

public static function get($name) {

return self::$configs[$name];

}

}

assume the $configs array is already populated and has a “general” key.

This “general” key holds an array that is exactly 1 megabyte.

Lets say I call

config::get('general');

10 times into different variables. None of the variables are edited afterwards… does this mean i have 10 variables each containing 1 megabyte or 10 variables pointing to 1 megabyte?

Answer 1

Only one, if you do not modify them.

But php is not the language where you can rely on any particular behavior 😉

Just tried:

<?php

printf("%10d\n",memory_get_usage());
$a = array_fill(0,30000,'oh');
printf("%10d\n",memory_get_usage());
$b = $a;
printf("%10d\n",memory_get_usage());
$b[] = '';
printf("%10d\n",memory_get_usage());

output:

    325524
   2256916
   2256980
   4188316