What are alternative methods to retrieving the last entry in a database without additional queries in PHP?

When retrieving the last entry in a database without additional queries in PHP, one alternative method is to use the ORDER BY clause in the SQL query to sort the results in descending order based on a unique identifier such as an auto-incrementing primary key. By limiting the number of results returned to 1, you can effectively retrieve the last entry without the need for additional queries.

// Connect to the database
$pdo = new PDO("mysql:host=localhost;dbname=your_database", "username", "password");

// Prepare and execute the SQL query to retrieve the last entry
$query = $pdo->prepare("SELECT * FROM your_table ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT 1");
$query->execute();

// Fetch the last entry from the result set
$lastEntry = $query->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);

// Output the last entry
print_r($lastEntry);