How can the use of SELECT * in SQL queries be avoided to improve code quality and performance when working with PDO?

Using SELECT * in SQL queries can lead to potential performance issues and reduced code quality because it retrieves all columns from a table, even if not all are needed. To improve code quality and performance when working with PDO, it is recommended to explicitly specify the columns to retrieve in the SELECT statement. This ensures that only the necessary data is fetched, leading to better performance and more maintainable code.

// Specify the columns to retrieve instead of using SELECT *
$sql = "SELECT column1, column2, column3 FROM table_name WHERE condition = :condition";
$stmt = $pdo->prepare($sql);
$stmt->bindParam(':condition', $condition_value);
$stmt->execute();

// Fetch data using fetch() or fetchAll() as needed
$data = $stmt->fetchAll(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);