Questions about Laravel encryption

I have some questions about the Encrypt class from Laravel. I am hoping somebody could answer them.

It's mostly about the encrypt method on line 70 here:

http://ift.tt/2h3u4Yg

public function encrypt($value)
{
    $iv = random_bytes(16);

    $value = \openssl_encrypt(
        serialize($value), $this->cipher, $this->key, 0, $iv
    );

    if ($value === false) {
        throw new EncryptException('Could not encrypt the data.');
    }

    $mac = $this->hash($iv = base64_encode($iv), $value);

    $json = json_encode(compact('iv', 'value', 'mac'));

    if (! is_string($json)) {
        throw new EncryptException('Could not encrypt the data.');
    }

    return base64_encode($json);
}

I have learned about openssl_encrypt and it seems like a good fit for a personal use case. I have made encrypt and decrypt methods using it.

The Laravel does a whole lot more than simply encrypting though.

• Why does laravel serialize the value on encryption? If it's always a string that this method takes what is the advantages of serializing the data?

• Why is base64_encode being used here?

• Why are the values json_encoded? Is this used to keep a clean array or for other intents as well? Currently in my class's encrypt() method I simply concat the encrypted $value and $iv(Initialization vector). On decrypt I break them apart again.

• Won't the openssl_encrypt throw already throw an exception when it can not encrypt data? Why is the return value checked if this is the case?

If somebody could take a minute to take a look at the github repo on the specified line I would be really happy.

Cheers!

via Chebli Mohamed