How can a PHP variable be defined and populated with the latest date from a database query result to be used in conditional statements?

To define a PHP variable and populate it with the latest date from a database query result, you can fetch the data from the database, sort the results by date in descending order, and then retrieve the first row to get the latest date. This date can then be assigned to a PHP variable for use in conditional statements.

// Assuming $conn is the database connection object

// Fetching the latest date from the database
$query = "SELECT date_column FROM table_name ORDER BY date_column DESC LIMIT 1";
$result = mysqli_query($conn, $query);

// Checking if the query was successful
if($result) {
    $row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result);
    $latest_date = $row['date_column'];
    
    // Now $latest_date contains the latest date from the database query result
}