In PHP, what is the significance of explicitly specifying columns in a SELECT query instead of using "SELECT *"?

Explicitly specifying columns in a SELECT query instead of using "SELECT *" is important for performance optimization and code maintainability. By explicitly listing the columns you need, you can reduce the amount of data being fetched from the database, resulting in faster query execution. Additionally, it makes your code more readable and easier to maintain as it clearly shows which columns are being retrieved. 

// Explicitly specifying columns in a SELECT query
$query = "SELECT column1, column2, column3 FROM table_name";
$result = mysqli_query($connection, $query);

// Fetching and using the data
while($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)) {
    echo $row['column1'] . ' ' . $row['column2'] . ' ' . $row['column3'] . '<br>';
}

Keywords

PHP SELECT query columns performance optimization

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