What are some best practices for handling large numbers of folders and files in a database in PHP?

When dealing with large numbers of folders and files in a database in PHP, it is important to optimize your database queries to efficiently retrieve and store the necessary information. One way to do this is by using pagination to limit the number of results returned at once, reducing the strain on the database and improving performance.

// Example of implementing pagination in PHP to handle large numbers of folders and files in a database

$page = isset($_GET['page']) ? $_GET['page'] : 1;
$items_per_page = 10;
$offset = ($page - 1) * $items_per_page;

// Query to retrieve folders and files with pagination
$query = "SELECT * FROM folders_files LIMIT $offset, $items_per_page";
$result = mysqli_query($connection, $query);

// Display the results
while($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)) {
    // Output folder/file data
}

// Pagination links
$total_pages = ceil($total_items / $items_per_page);
for($i = 1; $i <= $total_pages; $i++) {
    echo "<a href='?page=$i'>$i</a>";
}