How can the use of mysql_fetch_row() affect the indexing and retrieval of data from MySQL queries in PHP?

The use of mysql_fetch_row() can affect the indexing and retrieval of data from MySQL queries in PHP because it returns a numerical array that is not as intuitive to work with as an associative array. To solve this issue, you can use mysql_fetch_assoc() instead, which returns an associative array with column names as keys.

$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM table");

while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) {
    echo $row['column_name'];
}