What are some common best practices for optimizing PHP scripts to efficiently handle and display large amounts of data, such as in a social networking platform with millions of records?

When dealing with large amounts of data in PHP scripts, it is important to optimize the code for efficiency to ensure smooth processing and display. Some common best practices include using pagination to limit the number of records fetched at a time, optimizing database queries by using indexes and proper joins, caching frequently accessed data, and minimizing unnecessary function calls.

// Example of implementing pagination to efficiently handle large amounts of data

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

$query = "SELECT * FROM users LIMIT $offset, $records_per_page";
// Execute query and display results