Debugging PHP memory leak. Tracking the reference count?

Question

I have a rather large PHP script that is leaking memory. I have been able to figure out what object is leaking, but I have not been able to find out where in the script it is leaking. Some part of my script is keeping a reference to the leaking object.

Is there some way that I can track (and preferably backtrace) where/when a PHP object has it's reference count increased or decreased?

Answer 1

You can use profiling tools to find out what is leaking your memory i prefer http://xdebug.org/ and http://code.google.com/p/webgrind

http://derickrethans.nl/xdebug-and-tracing-memory-usage.html

Answer 2

Try to use:

• http://www.php-debug.com
• http://php.net/manual/en/function.debug-backtrace.php
• http://xdebug.org/docs/execution_trace

Also, I suggest to write the code in a easy-to-debug manner and separate the debugging procedures from the code.