How does PHP handle resource management and garbage collection in relation to memory usage?

PHP handles resource management and garbage collection by automatically deallocating memory for variables that are no longer in use. This is done through a process called garbage collection, where PHP identifies and removes unused variables from memory to free up space. Developers can also manually release memory by explicitly setting variables to null when they are no longer needed.

// Example of manually releasing memory by setting a variable to null
$largeArray = range(1, 1000000);
// Do some operations with $largeArray
unset($largeArray); // Free up memory by setting $largeArray to null