What are the potential pitfalls of using a for loop to implement encryption in PHP?

Using a for loop to implement encryption in PHP can be inefficient and prone to errors, especially when dealing with large amounts of data. It is recommended to use built-in encryption functions like openssl_encrypt() and openssl_decrypt() for secure and efficient encryption in PHP.

// Example of using openssl_encrypt() and openssl_decrypt() for encryption
$data = "Hello, World!";
$key = "secret_key";
$method = "AES-256-CBC";
$iv = openssl_random_pseudo_bytes(openssl_cipher_iv_length($method));

// Encrypt the data
$encrypted = openssl_encrypt($data, $method, $key, 0, $iv);

// Decrypt the data
$decrypted = openssl_decrypt($encrypted, $method, $key, 0, $iv);

echo "Original Data: " . $data . "\n";
echo "Encrypted Data: " . $encrypted . "\n";
echo "Decrypted Data: " . $decrypted . "\n";