What are the limitations of using PHP for compressing large files with libraries like PclZip?

When using PHP libraries like PclZip to compress large files, one limitation is the memory usage. PHP may run out of memory when trying to compress very large files, leading to performance issues or errors. To solve this, you can increase the memory limit in your PHP configuration or chunk the file into smaller parts before compressing.

// Increase memory limit for large file compression
ini_set('memory_limit', '256M');

// Chunk the file into smaller parts before compressing
$sourceFile = 'large_file.zip';
$chunkSize = 1024 * 1024; // 1MB
$handle = fopen('large_file.txt', 'rb');
$zip = new PclZip($sourceFile);

while (!feof($handle)) {
    $chunk = fread($handle, $chunkSize);
    $zip->add($chunk);
}

fclose($handle);