What are the advantages and disadvantages of directly manipulating the query string in PHP versus using $_GET to access query parameters?

Directly manipulating the query string in PHP can give more control over the parameters being passed, but it can also be prone to errors and security vulnerabilities if not handled properly. On the other hand, using $_GET to access query parameters is a safer and more standardized way to retrieve data from the query string, but it may limit the flexibility in manipulating the parameters.

// Using $_GET to access query parameters
$param1 = $_GET['param1'];
$param2 = $_GET['param2'];

// Directly manipulating the query string
$queryString = $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'];
parse_str($queryString, $params);
$param1 = $params['param1'];
$param2 = $params['param2'];