What are potential issues that may arise when merging two tables with different column structures in PHP?

When merging two tables with different column structures in PHP, potential issues may arise due to mismatched columns, resulting in data loss or errors. To solve this issue, you can map the columns from both tables to a common structure before merging them.

// Example of merging two tables with different column structures in PHP

// Assuming $table1 and $table2 are arrays representing the tables
$table1 = [
    ['id' => 1, 'name' => 'John'],
    ['id' => 2, 'name' => 'Jane'],
];

$table2 = [
    ['user_id' => 1, 'username' => 'johndoe'],
    ['user_id' => 2, 'username' => 'janedoe'],
];

// Mapping columns to a common structure
$mergedTable = [];
foreach ($table1 as $row) {
    $mergedTable[] = [
        'id' => $row['id'],
        'name' => $row['name'],
        'user_id' => null,
        'username' => null,
    ];
}

foreach ($table2 as $key => $row) {
    $mergedTable[$key]['user_id'] = $row['user_id'];
    $mergedTable[$key]['username'] = $row['username'];
}

// $mergedTable now contains the merged data with a common structure
print_r($mergedTable);