In PHP, what are the advantages of using fetchAll(PDO::FETCH_COLUMN) with PDO for fetching data from a database query?

When fetching data from a database query in PHP using PDO, using fetchAll(PDO::FETCH_COLUMN) can be advantageous when you only need to retrieve a single column of data from the result set. This method returns an array containing values from a single column, which can simplify data processing and reduce memory usage compared to fetching an entire row of data.

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

// Prepare and execute a query
$stmt = $pdo->prepare('SELECT column_name FROM my_table');
$stmt->execute();

// Fetch all values from the specified column
$column_values = $stmt->fetchAll(PDO::FETCH_COLUMN);

// Process the retrieved data
foreach ($column_values as $value) {
    echo $value . "\n";
}