What are the advantages and disadvantages of using a while loop in PHP to iterate through query results compared to utilizing SQL JOIN statements for data manipulation?

When iterating through query results in PHP using a while loop, the advantage is that it allows for more flexibility in data manipulation and processing. However, it can be less efficient compared to utilizing SQL JOIN statements, which can perform the data manipulation directly on the database server. 

// Using a while loop to iterate through query results
$query = "SELECT * FROM table";
$result = mysqli_query($connection, $query);

while ($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)) {
    // Process each row individually
}

// Using SQL JOIN statements for data manipulation
$query = "SELECT t1.*, t2.* FROM table1 t1 JOIN table2 t2 ON t1.id = t2.id";
$result = mysqli_query($connection, $query);

while ($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)) {
    // Process joined data
}

Keywords

while loop PHP SQL JOIN query results data manipulation

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