How can PHP functions be optimized for efficient date manipulation in MySQL queries?

To optimize PHP functions for efficient date manipulation in MySQL queries, it is recommended to use MySQL's built-in date functions directly in the queries instead of manipulating dates in PHP before passing them to the database. This reduces the overhead of data transformation and can improve query performance significantly.

// Example of using MySQL's DATE_FORMAT function in a query to manipulate dates directly
$query = "SELECT * FROM table WHERE DATE_FORMAT(date_column, '%Y-%m-%d') = CURDATE()";
$result = mysqli_query($connection, $query);