How can the use of prepared statements improve the speed and efficiency of database operations in PHP?

Using prepared statements in PHP can improve the speed and efficiency of database operations by reducing the overhead of repeatedly parsing and compiling SQL queries. Prepared statements also help prevent SQL injection attacks by separating SQL logic from user input data. This means that the query is only parsed once and then executed multiple times with different parameters, resulting in faster execution times.

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

// Prepare a statement
$stmt = $pdo->prepare('SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = :id');

// Bind parameters
$stmt->bindParam(':id', $userId, PDO::PARAM_INT);

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

// Fetch results
$results = $stmt->fetchAll(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);