php - Firebird Interbase Connection - unset() and ibase_close()

Solution:

My knowledge of PHP is rudimentary at best, but as far as I know there is a distinct difference.

The function ibase_close($connection) will send a message to the database server, so the server releases its connection resources and then it closes the connection, while unset($connection) will only delete the variable $connection.

My knowledge of PHP and the firebird-php/interbase driver is not sufficient to know for sure if using unset will trigger a cleanup or close of the connection, but a quick scan of the firebird-php sources doesn't show any such mechanism. My suggestion is that you should be explicit and use ibase_close before you call unset, so you're sure resources (including serverside resources) are released properly.

Solution:

ibase_close closes the non-persistent connection to the server that's associated with $connection. Default transaction on link is committed, other transactions are rolled back.

unset clears the pointer to the instance.