In what scenarios would it be more efficient to fill an array within a while loop in PHP, especially when working with Smarty templates?

When working with Smarty templates in PHP, it may be more efficient to fill an array within a while loop if you need to dynamically generate and display data. This approach can help in cases where you need to fetch data from a database or perform calculations within the loop to populate the array. By filling the array within the loop, you can then assign the array to a Smarty variable for easy access and display in the template.

<?php
// Sample code to fill an array within a while loop and assign it to a Smarty variable

// Initialize an empty array
$dataArray = array();

// Sample data retrieval within a while loop
while ($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
    // Perform any necessary operations on the data
    $processedData = $row['value'] * 2;
    
    // Add the processed data to the array
    $dataArray[] = $processedData;
}

// Assign the array to a Smarty variable
$smarty->assign('dataArray', $dataArray);
?>