Happy Coders

A destructor in PHP is a special method defined using __destruct(). It is automatically called when an object is destroyed or the script ends. Destructors are used for cleanup tasks like closing files or database connections. They do not take any parameters. Only one destructor can be defined per class.

1. Basic Destructor Example

class Test {
    public function __construct() {
        echo "Constructor called
";
    }

    public function __destruct() {
        echo "Destructor called";
    }
}

$obj = new Test();
// Destructor runs automatically at the end of script

File: destructor_basic.php

2. Destructor with Resource Cleanup

class FileHandler {
    private $handle;

    public function __construct($filename) {
        $this->handle = fopen($filename, "w");
        echo "File opened
";
    }

    public function write($text) {
        fwrite($this->handle, $text);
    }

    public function __destruct() {
        fclose($this->handle);
        echo "File closed";
    }
}

$file = new FileHandler("demo.txt");
$file->write("Hello, world!");

File: destructor_file.php

Destructor Rules