Is it best practice to handle date comparisons and filtering in PHP or in the database query itself?

When dealing with date comparisons and filtering, it is generally best practice to handle them in the database query itself. This allows the database engine to optimize the query execution and retrieve only the necessary data, which can improve performance. However, if you need to manipulate dates or perform complex calculations based on dates in PHP, you can retrieve the data from the database and then process it in PHP. 

// Example of handling date filtering in a MySQL query
$startDate = '2022-01-01';
$endDate = '2022-12-31';

$sql = "SELECT * FROM table_name WHERE date_column BETWEEN '$startDate' AND '$endDate'";
$result = mysqli_query($connection, $sql);

// Process the query result in PHP
while ($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)) {
    // Process each row as needed
}

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