Are there any specific PHP functions or methods that can help optimize the process of sorting and displaying user points from a MySQL table?

To optimize the process of sorting and displaying user points from a MySQL table, you can use the `ORDER BY` clause in your SQL query to sort the results directly from the database. Additionally, you can use PHP's `mysqli_fetch_assoc()` function to fetch the sorted results and display them in a formatted way.

// Connect to the database
$conn = mysqli_connect("localhost", "username", "password", "dbname");

// Query to select user points sorted in descending order
$query = "SELECT user_id, points FROM user_points ORDER BY points DESC";
$result = mysqli_query($conn, $query);

// Display the sorted user points
while ($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)) {
    echo "User ID: " . $row['user_id'] . " - Points: " . $row['points'] . "<br>";
}

// Close the database connection
mysqli_close($conn);