How can developers ensure data integrity and prevent duplicate entries without relying on error messages in PHP?

To ensure data integrity and prevent duplicate entries without relying on error messages in PHP, developers can implement unique constraints in their database schema. By setting unique indexes on the columns that should not contain duplicate values, the database will automatically reject any attempts to insert duplicate entries. This approach ensures data integrity at the database level and eliminates the need for error messages to handle duplicate entries.

CREATE TABLE users (
    id INT PRIMARY KEY,
    username VARCHAR(50) UNIQUE,
    email VARCHAR(100) UNIQUE
);