How can CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER be utilized in cURL to manage data retrieval and processing effectively?

When using cURL to make HTTP requests in PHP, the CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER option should be set to true in order to return the response as a string instead of outputting it directly. This allows for better management of the retrieved data, enabling further processing or manipulation as needed.

// Initialize cURL session
$ch = curl_init();

// Set cURL options
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'https://example.com/api');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);

// Execute cURL session and store the response
$response = curl_exec($ch);

// Close cURL session
curl_close($ch);

// Process the retrieved data as needed
echo $response;