One important thing to remember is that in iterator can be infinite. Not all iterators necessarily end. If iterator_to_array is used on such an iterator, it will exhaust the available memory, and throw a fatal error.

For example, consider the following code:

<?php

function fibonacci(): Generator
{
    yield $a = 1;
    yield $b = 2;

    start:
    yield $c = $a + $b;
    $a = $b;
    $b = $c;
    goto start;
}

$fibonacciSequence = fibonacci();
iterator_to_array($fibonacciSequence);

?>

Since <?php fibonacci(); ?> generates an infinite fibonacci sequence, which is valid, since it is actually an infinite sequence, then attempting to convert it to an array will fail.