What potential pitfalls should PHP developers be aware of when using global variables in debugging?

When using global variables in debugging, PHP developers should be cautious of unintentionally modifying the global state of their application, leading to unexpected behavior or bugs. To mitigate this risk, developers should minimize the use of global variables and instead opt for passing variables explicitly between functions or using PHP's superglobals like $_GET or $_POST. 

// Avoid using global variables in debugging by passing variables explicitly between functions

$globalVariable = 'initial value';

function modifyGlobalVariable(&$var) {
    $var = 'modified value';
}

modifyGlobalVariable($globalVariable);

echo $globalVariable; // Output: 'modified value'

Keywords

global variables debugging scope variable contamination security vulnerabilities

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