What are the potential pitfalls of using fopen to read a .json file in PHP?

One potential pitfall of using fopen to read a .json file in PHP is that it requires manual handling of opening and closing the file, as well as checking for errors during the process. A better approach would be to use the file_get_contents function, which simplifies the process and automatically handles opening, reading, and closing the file. 

// Using file_get_contents to read a .json file in PHP
$jsonData = file_get_contents('data.json');

// Check if the file was successfully read
if ($jsonData === false) {
    die('Error reading file');
}

// Decode the JSON data
$data = json_decode($jsonData, true);

// Check if the JSON data was successfully decoded
if ($data === null) {
    die('Error decoding JSON');
}

// Use the $data array as needed

Keywords

fopen .json file PHP error handling file reading

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