How to encrypt/decrypt data in php?

Question

I\'m currently a student and I\'m studying PHP, I\'m trying to make a simple encrypt/decrypt of data in PHP. I made some online research and some of them were quite confusin

Answer 1

     function my_simple_crypt( $string, $action = 'e' ) {
        // you may change these values to your own
        $secret_key = 'my_simple_secret_key';
        $secret_iv = 'my_simple_secret_iv';

        $output = false;
        $encrypt_method = "AES-256-CBC";
        $key = hash( 'sha256', $secret_key );
        $iv = substr( hash( 'sha256', $secret_iv ), 0, 16 );

        if( $action == 'e' ) {
            $output = base64_encode( openssl_encrypt( $string, $encrypt_method, $key, 0, $iv ) );
        }
        else if( $action == 'd' ){
            $output = openssl_decrypt( base64_decode( $string ), $encrypt_method, $key, 0, $iv );
        }

        return $output;
    }