xmlFreeDoc

xmlFreeDoc is a function provided by the libxml2 library. Its primary purpose is to deallocate the memory occupied by an XML document structure. When an XML document is parsed using libxml2, it is represented internally as a tree-like data structure. This structure consumes memory. The xmlFreeDoc function is used to release this memory back to the system, preventing memory leaks.

To use xmlFreeDoc, you first need to have a pointer to an xmlDocPtr, which is the type representing an XML document structure in libxml2. This pointer is typically obtained from parsing an XML file or string using functions like xmlReadFile or xmlParseMemory. Once you are finished with the XML document and no longer need to access its content or structure, you call xmlFreeDoc with the xmlDocPtr as an argument. The function then traverses the document tree and frees all associated memory, including the document node itself, its children, attributes, and any other related data structures.

Properly using xmlFreeDoc is crucial for efficient memory management in applications that extensively use XML parsing. Failing to free documents when they are no longer needed can lead to a gradual increase in memory consumption, potentially impacting application performance or stability. It is a common practice to call xmlFreeDoc immediately after you have finished processing the data extracted from an XML document. The function signature is void xmlFreeDoc(xmlDocPtr doc).