Should I use a backslah before global functions in PHP even if is not needed?

Question

There is a recommendation on https://phptherightway.com/pages/The-Basics.html using backslash for global functions. Take a look at this code:

<?php

 namespace myspace;
 
 class MyClass
 {
      public $myvar = 'test';
      public function myfunction()
      {
           $withoutBackslash = json_encode($this->myvar);
           $withBackslash    = \json_encode($this->myvar);
          return [$withBackslash, $withoutBackslash];
      }
  }

How is better with or without backslash? I never used them before should I change my code in either direction (removing or adding)?

Answer 1

No, since you do not have global functions, only classes, then there is no point in separate them. They are using \fopen because they have phptherightway\fopen

In that case writing just fopen will refer to phptherightway\fopen instead of global fopen