checking memory_limit in PHP

I'm need to check if memory_limit is at least 64M in my script installer. This is just part of PHP code that should work, but probably due to this "M" it's not reading properly the value. How to fix this ?

  //memory_limit
    echo "<phpmem>";
    if(key_exists('PHP Core', $phpinfo))
    {
        if(key_exists('memory_limit', $phpinfo['PHP Core']))
        {
            $t=explode(".", $phpinfo['PHP Core']['memory_limit']);
            if($t[0]>=64)
                $ok=1;
            else
                $ok=0;
            echo "<val>{$phpinfo['PHP Core']['memory_limit']}</val><ok>$ok</ok>";
        }
        else
           echo "<val></val><ok>0</ok>";
    }
    else
        echo "<val></val><ok>0</ok>";
    echo "</phpmem>\n"; 

Checking on command line:

php -i | grep "memory_limit"

Try to convert the value first (eg: 64M -> 64 * 1024 * 1024). After that, do comparison and print the result.

<?php
$memory_limit = ini_get('memory_limit');
if (preg_match('/^(\d+)(.)$/', $memory_limit, $matches)) {
    if ($matches[2] == 'M') {
        $memory_limit = $matches[1] * 1024 * 1024; // nnnM -> nnn MB
    } else if ($matches[2] == 'K') {
        $memory_limit = $matches[1] * 1024; // nnnK -> nnn KB
    }
}

$ok = ($memory_limit >= 64 * 1024 * 1024); // at least 64M?

echo '<phpmem>';
echo '<val>' . $memory_limit . '</val>';
echo '<ok>' . ($ok ? 1 : 0) . '</ok>';
echo '</phpmem>';

Please note that the above code is just an idea. Don't forget to handle -1 (no memory limit), integer-only value (value in bytes), G (value in gigabytes), k/m/g (value in kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes because shorthand is case-insensitive), etc.

1. PHP-CLI:

Command line to check ini:

$ php -r "echo ini_get('memory_limit');"

Or check php-cli info and grep memory_limit value:

$ php -i | grep "memory_limit"

2. PHP-FPM:

Paste this line into index.php or any php file that can be viewed on a browser, then check the result:

<?php echo ini_get('memory_limit');

An alternative way is using phpinfo():

<?php phpinfo();

then find for memory_limit value

Here is another simpler way to check that.

$memory_limit = return_bytes(ini_get('memory_limit'));
if ($memory_limit < (64 * 1024 * 1024)) {
    // Memory insufficient	    
}

/**
* Converts shorthand memory notation value to bytes
* From http://php.net/manual/en/function.ini-get.php
*
* @param $val Memory size shorthand notation string
*/
function return_bytes($val) {
    $val = trim($val);
    $last = strtolower($val[strlen($val)-1]);
    $val = substr($val, 0, -1);
    switch($last) {
        // The 'G' modifier is available since PHP 5.1.0
        case 'g':
            $val *= 1024;
        case 'm':
            $val *= 1024;
        case 'k':
            $val *= 1024;
    }
    return $val;
}

very old post. but i'll just leave this here:

/* converts a number with byte unit (B / K / M / G) into an integer */
function unitToInt($s)
{
    return (int)preg_replace_callback('/(\-?\d+)(.?)/', function ($m) {
        return $m[1] * pow(1024, strpos('BKMG', $m[2]));
    }, strtoupper($s));
}

$mem_limit = unitToInt(ini_get('memory_limit'));

As long as your array $phpinfo['PHP Core']['memory_limit'] contains the value of memory_limit, it does work the following:

• The last character of that value can signal the shorthand notation. If it's an invalid one, it's ignored.
• The beginning of the string is converted to a number in PHP's own specific way: Whitespace ignored etc.
• The text between the number and the shorthand notation (if any) is ignored.

Example:

# Memory Limit equal or higher than 64M?
$ok = (int) (bool) setting_to_bytes($phpinfo['PHP Core']['memory_limit']) >= 0x4000000;

/**
 * @param string $setting
 *
 * @return NULL|number
 */
function setting_to_bytes($setting)
{
    static $short = array('k' => 0x400,
                          'm' => 0x100000,
                          'g' => 0x40000000);

    $setting = (string)$setting;
    if (!($len = strlen($setting))) return NULL;
    $last    = strtolower($setting[$len - 1]);
    $numeric = (int) $setting;
    $numeric *= isset($short[$last]) ? $short[$last] : 1;
    return $numeric;
}

Details of the shorthand notation are outline in a PHP manual's FAQ entry and extreme details are part of Protocol of some PHP Memory Stretching Fun.

Take care if the setting is -1 PHP won't limit here, but the system does. So you need to decide how the installer treats that value.

Not so exact but simpler solution:

$limit = str_replace(array('G', 'M', 'K'), array('000000000', '000000', '000'), ini_get('memory_limit'));
if($limit < 500000000) ini_set('memory_limit', '500M');						

If you are interested in CLI memory limit:

cat /etc/php/[7.0]/cli/php.ini | grep "memory_limit"

FPM / "Normal"

cat /etc/php/[7.0]/fpm/php.ini | grep "memory_limit"

Thank you for inspiration.

I had the same problem and instead of just copy-pasting some function from the Internet, I wrote an open source tool for it. Feel free to use it or provide feedback!

https://github.com/BrandEmbassy/php-memory

Just install it using Composer and then you get the current PHP memory limit like this:

$configuration = new \BrandEmbassy\Memory\MemoryConfiguration();
$limitProvider = new \BrandEmbassy\Memory\MemoryLimitProvider($configuration);
$limitInBytes = $memoryLimitProvider->getLimitInBytes();