What are the potential risks of using variable variables in PHP, as discussed in the forum thread?

The potential risks of using variable variables in PHP include security vulnerabilities such as injection attacks, confusion in code readability, and difficulty in debugging. It is recommended to avoid using variable variables and instead opt for associative arrays to achieve similar functionality in a safer and more maintainable way. 

// Avoid using variable variables
$varName = 'example';
$$varName = 'value';
echo $example;

// Use associative arrays instead
$data = [];
$varName = 'example';
$data[$varName] = 'value';
echo $data[$varName];

Keywords

variable variables security vulnerabilities code readability namespace collisions data manipulation

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