What are the potential drawbacks of using global variables in PHP functions for manipulating data?

Using global variables in PHP functions for manipulating data can lead to code that is harder to maintain and debug, as it introduces hidden dependencies and makes it difficult to track where and how the variable is being modified. To avoid these issues, it is recommended to pass variables as parameters to functions or use return values to update data. 

function manipulate_data($data) {
    // manipulate data here
    return $manipulated_data;
}

// Example of how to use the function
$data = [1, 2, 3, 4];
$manipulated_data = manipulate_data($data);

Keywords

global variables PHP functions data manipulation drawbacks programming practice

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