What are some best practices for optimizing memory usage when dealing with large datasets in PHP, such as in the case of a dictionary or glossary project?

When dealing with large datasets in PHP, such as in a dictionary or glossary project, it's important to optimize memory usage to prevent performance issues. One way to do this is by using generators in PHP instead of loading the entire dataset into memory at once. Generators allow you to iterate over a large dataset one item at a time, reducing memory consumption.

// Example of using a generator to iterate over a large dataset
function largeDatasetGenerator() {
    // Simulating a large dataset
    $largeDataset = range(1, 1000000);

    foreach ($largeDataset as $item) {
        yield $item;
    }
}

// Using the generator to iterate over the dataset
foreach (largeDatasetGenerator() as $item) {
    // Process each item here
    echo $item . PHP_EOL;
}