What is, if any, prefered mcrypt cipher for encrypting/decrypting php objects or arrays
I'll keep this short and simple. As part of PHP's mcrypt library there are 40 or so possible ciphers, [see here][1].

Not knowing much about encryption myself, I'm working under the assumption regardless of the cipher used, the data when decrypted is identical as the data encrypted (otherwise what's the point right?)

I need to encrypt and then decryption either an array or standard object. I've browsed a couple examples online of the basic implementation of the mcrypt library and noticed that each example used a different cipher. It got me wondering if there was any significance to this, or simply personal preference?

My question is, is there any significant differences between these ciphers I should be concerned with knowing that

* I'll be encrypting/decrypting is an either an array or standard object, and contain relatively little data.
* This operation will be fairly uncommon so speed isn't a massive issue, anywhere in the range on < 2s is acceptable.
* The encrypted string will need to be stored in a cookie and transmitted via url query string (so there are limitations on length)

**Note** 

I'm not after a debate about whether I should be using a hash or hmac. Encryption is necessary and the correct option for this problem.


  [1]: http://au2.php.net/manual/en/mcrypt.ciphers.php
What is, if any, prefered mcrypt cipher for encrypting/decrypting php objects or arrays
===

I'll keep this short and simple. As part of PHP's mcrypt library there are 40 or so possible ciphers, [see here][1].

Not knowing much about encryption myself, I'm working under the assumption regardless of the cipher used, the data when decrypted is identical as the data encrypted (otherwise what's the point right?)

I need to encrypt and then decryption either an array or standard object. I've browsed a couple examples online of the basic implementation of the mcrypt library and noticed that each example used a different cipher. It got me wondering if there was any significance to this, or simply personal preference?

My question is, is there any significant differences between these ciphers I should be concerned with knowing that

* I'll be encrypting/decrypting is an either an array or standard object, and contain relatively little data.
* This operation will be fairly uncommon so speed isn't a massive issue, anywhere in the range on < 2s is acceptable.
* The encrypted string will need to be stored in a cookie and transmitted via url query string (so there are limitations on length)

**Note** 

I'm not after a debate about whether I should be using a hash or hmac. Encryption is necessary and the correct option for this problem.


  [1]: http://au2.php.net/manual/en/mcrypt.ciphers.php