In what scenarios is it advisable to use the SELECT statement with specific table names in a PHP query instead of using SELECT *?

It is advisable to use the SELECT statement with specific table names in a PHP query instead of using SELECT * when you only need certain columns from the table. This can improve performance by reducing the amount of data retrieved from the database and can make the code more readable and maintainable.

// Example of using specific table names in a PHP query
$query = "SELECT column1, column2 FROM table_name WHERE condition = 'value'";
$result = mysqli_query($connection, $query);

if(mysqli_num_rows($result) > 0) {
    while($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)) {
        // Process the retrieved data
    }
} else {
    echo "No results found.";
}