How can PHP be effectively used to create and manipulate tables in a web development project?

PHP can be effectively used to create and manipulate tables in a web development project by utilizing SQL queries to interact with a database. By connecting to a database using PHP, developers can create tables, insert data, retrieve data, update records, and delete records within the tables. This allows for dynamic content management and organization of data on a website.

// Connect to the database
$servername = "localhost";
$username = "username";
$password = "password";
$dbname = "database_name";

$conn = new mysqli($servername, $username, $password, $dbname);

// Create a table
$sql = "CREATE TABLE users (
    id INT(6) UNSIGNED AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
    firstname VARCHAR(30) NOT NULL,
    lastname VARCHAR(30) NOT NULL,
    email VARCHAR(50),
    reg_date TIMESTAMP
)";

if ($conn->query($sql) === TRUE) {
    echo "Table users created successfully";
} else {
    echo "Error creating table: " . $conn->error;
}

// Close the database connection
$conn->close();