How can the presence of duplicate query statements impact the functionality of a PHP search script and lead to errors?

Duplicate query statements in a PHP search script can impact functionality by causing unnecessary processing and potentially returning incorrect results. To solve this issue, you should ensure that query statements are only executed once to optimize performance and prevent errors.

// Example of fixing duplicate query statements in a PHP search script
// Assuming $search_query is the search query input

// Check if the search query is not empty
if (!empty($search_query)) {
    // Execute the query statement only once
    $query = "SELECT * FROM table_name WHERE column_name LIKE '%$search_query%'";
    
    // Execute the query and fetch results
    $result = mysqli_query($connection, $query);
    
    // Process the results
    if (mysqli_num_rows($result) > 0) {
        while ($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)) {
            // Output or process the search results
        }
    } else {
        echo "No results found";
    }
}