What are the potential drawbacks of using fopen() and fclose() functions extensively in PHP scripts?

Using fopen() and fclose() functions extensively in PHP scripts can lead to potential drawbacks such as resource leaks if the file handles are not properly closed after use. To solve this issue, it is important to ensure that fclose() is called after fopen() to release the file handle and free up system resources.

$file = fopen("example.txt", "r");

// Do operations with the file

fclose($file);