How can the SELECT * statement in SQL queries be optimized for better performance?

Using the SELECT * statement in SQL queries can lead to performance issues as it retrieves all columns from a table, even if only a few columns are needed. To optimize performance, it is recommended to specify the specific columns needed in the SELECT statement rather than using *. This reduces the amount of data that needs to be retrieved and processed, resulting in faster query execution.

// Specify specific columns in the SELECT statement instead of using *
$query = "SELECT column1, column2 FROM table_name WHERE condition = 'value'";
$result = mysqli_query($connection, $query);

// Process the query result
if (mysqli_num_rows($result) > 0) {
    while ($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)) {
        // Process each row
    }
}