How can database queries be optimized in PHP to efficiently retrieve content based on filenames with special characters?

Special characters in filenames can cause issues when querying a database in PHP. To optimize database queries for efficiently retrieving content based on filenames with special characters, it is important to properly escape and sanitize the filenames before using them in the query. This can be done using functions like mysqli_real_escape_string() or prepared statements to prevent SQL injection attacks and ensure the query runs smoothly.

// Assuming $filename contains the filename with special characters
$escaped_filename = mysqli_real_escape_string($connection, $filename);

$query = "SELECT * FROM files WHERE filename = '$escaped_filename'";
$result = mysqli_query($connection, $query);

// Process the query result as needed