How can the functionality of "ORDER BY" be optimized in PHP?

To optimize the functionality of "ORDER BY" in PHP, you can use prepared statements to prevent SQL injection attacks and improve performance by reducing the need for repeated query compilation. Prepared statements also allow for the reuse of query execution plans, resulting in faster query execution times.

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

// Prepare a statement with ORDER BY clause
$stmt = $pdo->prepare("SELECT * FROM mytable ORDER BY column_name");

// Execute the statement
$stmt->execute();

// Fetch the results
$results = $stmt->fetchAll();

// Output the results
foreach ($results as $row) {
    echo $row['column_name'] . "<br>";
}