How can PHP beginners avoid errors when writing scripts to interact with a MySQL database?

To avoid errors when writing scripts to interact with a MySQL database as a PHP beginner, it is important to properly handle potential errors that may occur during database operations. One way to do this is by using try-catch blocks to catch any exceptions that may be thrown by the database operations and handle them appropriately.

try {
    // Connect to the MySQL database
    $pdo = new PDO('mysql:host=localhost;dbname=mydatabase', 'username', 'password');

    // Set the PDO error mode to exception
    $pdo->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE, PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION);

    // Perform database operations here

} catch (PDOException $e) {
    // Display an error message if an exception is caught
    echo 'Error: ' . $e->getMessage();
}