Are while loops necessary in PHP functions when only expecting one database record, and how can they contribute to undefined variables?
While loops are not necessary in PHP functions when expecting only one database record. Using a while loop in this scenario can lead to undefined variable errors if the loop tries to iterate over a result set that contains only one record. To avoid this issue, you can use a conditional check to ensure that the result set contains at least one record before trying to fetch it.
// Assuming $conn is your database connection and $query is your SQL query
$result = mysqli_query($conn, $query);
if(mysqli_num_rows($result) > 0){
$row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result);
// Process the record here
} else {
// Handle the case where no record is found
}