Is it recommended to use IF statements or built-in functions like NULLIF for handling empty values in SQL queries in PHP?
When handling empty values in SQL queries in PHP, it is recommended to use built-in functions like NULLIF. This function allows you to return NULL if a specific condition is met, which can be helpful in cases where you want to handle empty values gracefully without causing errors in your queries.
// Using NULLIF to handle empty values in SQL queries
$variable = ""; // Empty value
$query = "SELECT * FROM table WHERE column = NULLIF('$variable', '')";
// This query will return rows where the column value is NULL if $variable is empty