Question

In my php.ini file I have

memory=40M

What does this do (it solves some problems that I have been having). Note that this is NOT:

memory_limit=128M

I know memory limit sets the maximum amount of memory a PHP script can use, but what does memory do?

EDIT

I recognize this is not a standard directive, but it is fixing my problem. Without it my pages randomly produce 500 errors, but then I put this line in and they go away.

This is where I got the fix from:

http://www.archtopia.com/2010/01/30/wordpress-internal-server-error-500-with-1and1-webhosting/

Answer 1

memory is not a valid php.ini directive. It may be solving your problem because it is not recognized, in turn resorting to a default value that does in fact work. Also note that “megabyte” should be M not MB.

The proper way to set the value is:

memory_limit=40m