How can the use of if statements instead of while loops improve error handling in PHP scripts that retrieve data from a MySQL database?

Using if statements instead of while loops can improve error handling in PHP scripts that retrieve data from a MySQL database by allowing for more granular control over the flow of the script. By using if statements to check for specific conditions, such as whether a query returned any results or if an error occurred during database interaction, we can handle these scenarios more effectively and provide appropriate feedback to the user.

// Connect to the database
$connection = mysqli_connect("localhost", "username", "password", "database");

// Check if the connection was successful
if (!$connection) {
    die("Connection failed: " . mysqli_connect_error());
}

// Perform a query
$query = "SELECT * FROM table";
$result = mysqli_query($connection, $query);

// Check if the query was successful
if (!$result) {
    die("Query failed: " . mysqli_error($connection));
}

// Check if any rows were returned
if (mysqli_num_rows($result) > 0) {
    // Fetch and display data
    while ($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)) {
        echo "Name: " . $row["name"] . "<br>";
    }
} else {
    echo "No results found.";
}

// Close the connection
mysqli_close($connection);