Description:
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From manual page: http://www.php.net/mysqli-stmt.free-result
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"mysqli_stmt::free_result -- mysqli_stmt_free_result — Frees stored result memory for the given statement handle"

It also clears the result bindings, so that you need to call mysqli_stmt::bind_result again if you're going to use the prepared statement a second time after this.

In spite of the manual for bind_result saying that it must be called after execute, this doesn't appear to actually be required in all the testing I've done. Ie, if you have a prepared statement that returns a name column based off an id, you can bind $id to the id in the parameter and $name to the name result at the end before calling execute and it seems to work fine. You can then keep changing $id and calling execute and fetch and $name gets filled correctly. If you however call free_result after the fetch (ie, if you're using store_result) the next time you run execute $name isn't bound to the result.

The manual page isn't particularly clear on these unintended side effects of free_result since all it says is it frees the stored result memory, not also the bindings...