php curl memory usage

Question

I have this function that gets the html from a list of pages and once I run it for two hours or so the script interrupts and shows that memory limit has been exceeded, Now i've tried to unset/set to null some variables hopefully to free up some memory but it's the same problem. Can you guys please take a look at the following piece of code? :

{
    $ch = curl_init();
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, TRUE);
    if ($proxystatus == 'on'){
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, FALSE);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPPROXYTUNNEL, TRUE);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_PROXY, $proxy);
    }
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, "cookie.txt");
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $site);
    ob_start();
    return curl_exec($ch); // the line the script interrupts because of memory
    ob_end_clean();
    curl_close($ch);

    ob_flush();
    $site = null;
    $ch = null;

}

Any suggestion is highly appreciated. I've set the memory limit to 128M, but before increasing it (doesnt seem like the best option to me) I would like to know if there's anything I can do to use less memory/free up memory while running the script.

Thank you.

Did you code this as a method of a class and are you running it via CLI? — N.B., Feb 04 '13 at 13:03
Nope it's a function, that loops thru a list of urls and fetche the html. Yes Im using it via command line. — inrob, Feb 04 '13 at 13:17

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 04 '13 at 14:06

1

You are indeed leaking memory. Remember that return immediately ends execution of the current function, so all your cleanup (most importantly ob_end_clean() and curl_close()) is never called.

return should be the very last thing the function does.

answered Feb 04 '13 at 14:06

Niet the Dark Absol

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Thank you. But will there be any returned value if i more up curl_close() and ob_end_clean() ?? – inrob Feb 04 '13 at 14:42
Well, you would have to save `curl_exec`'s return value to a variable, then run your cleanup, then `return` the variable. – Niet the Dark Absol Feb 04 '13 at 14:53
Im new on curl but would that make a difference? We are assigning the returned value to a variable and clearing that returned value and then returning the same value that's stored in the variable. Anyways I did so and I dont see any change... :( – inrob Feb 04 '13 at 15:38
Thanks, I used xdebug to track the memory issue and everything seems fine right now. Thank you alot. – inrob Feb 05 '13 at 01:27

ATJ · Answer 2 · 2021-02-12T12:12:11.243

I know it's been a while, but others might run into a similar issue, so in case it helps anyone else... To me the problem here is that curl is set to save the output to a string. [That's what happens with curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, TRUE);] If the output gets too long, the script will run out of allowed memory for that string. [That returns an error like FATAL ERROR: Allowed memory size of 134217728 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 130027520 bytes)] The way around this is to use one of the other output methods offered by curl: output to standard output, or output to file. In either case, ob-start shouldn't be needed at all.

Hence you could replace the content of the braces with either option below:

OPTION 1: Output to standard output:

$ch = curl_init();
if ($proxystatus == 'on'){
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, FALSE);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPPROXYTUNNEL, TRUE);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_PROXY, $proxy);
}
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, "cookie.txt");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $site);
curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);

OPTION 2: Output to file:

$file = fopen("path_to_file", "w"); //place this outside the braces if you want to output the content of all iterations to the same file
$ch = curl_init();
if ($proxystatus == 'on'){
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, FALSE);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPPROXYTUNNEL, TRUE);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_PROXY, $proxy);
}
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_FILE, $file);    
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, "cookie.txt");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $site);
curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
fclose($file);  //place this outside of the braces if you want to output the content of all iterations to the same file

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 04 '13 at 13:00

For sure this is not a cURL issue. Use tools like xdebug to detect which part of your script is consuming memory.

Btw I would also change it not to run for two hours, I will move it to a cronjob that runs everyminute, check what it needs and then stops.

php curl memory usage

3 Answers3