What are common pitfalls when using the LIKE operator in PHP for case-insensitive searches?

Common pitfalls when using the LIKE operator in PHP for case-insensitive searches include not converting both the column value and the search term to the same case, leading to incorrect results. To solve this, you can use the LOWER() function in your SQL query to convert both the column value and the search term to lowercase before comparing them.

$searchTerm = 'example';
$query = "SELECT * FROM table_name WHERE LOWER(column_name) LIKE LOWER('%$searchTerm%')";