Is it necessary to use FIND_IN_SET to order results in a MySQL query when the IDs are already in a specific order in PHP?

If the IDs are already in a specific order in PHP, it is not necessary to use FIND_IN_SET to order results in a MySQL query. You can simply use the ORDER BY clause in your SQL query to order the results based on the specific order of IDs that you have in PHP.

// Assuming $ids is an array containing the specific order of IDs
$ids = [2, 4, 1, 3];

// Construct your SQL query with the ORDER BY clause
$sql = "SELECT * FROM table_name WHERE id IN (" . implode(',', $ids) . ") ORDER BY FIELD(id, " . implode(',', $ids) . ")";

// Execute the query and fetch the results
$result = $pdo->query($sql)->fetchAll();