In what situations should the INSERT statement in PHP be used instead of the UPDATE statement, as mentioned in the discussion?

When you want to add a new record to a database table, you should use the INSERT statement in PHP. This is because the INSERT statement is specifically designed to create new entries in a database table. On the other hand, the UPDATE statement is used to modify existing records in the table. Therefore, if you want to insert a new record, always use the INSERT statement.

// Example of using the INSERT statement in PHP
$sql = "INSERT INTO users (username, email) VALUES ('john_doe', 'john.doe@example.com')";
if ($conn->query($sql) === TRUE) {
    echo "New record created successfully";
} else {
    echo "Error: " . $sql . "<br>" . $conn->error;
}