What are the advantages and disadvantages of explicitly specifying column names in a SELECT query instead of using SELECT * in PHP?

Explicitly specifying column names in a SELECT query has the advantage of improving performance by reducing the amount of data retrieved from the database, as only the specified columns are selected. This can also make the code more readable and maintainable, as it clearly shows which columns are being used. However, the disadvantage is that if the database schema changes and column names are modified, the query will need to be updated to reflect these changes. 

// Specify column names in the SELECT query
$query = "SELECT column1, column2, column3 FROM table_name";
$result = mysqli_query($connection, $query);

// Fetch and display the results
while ($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)) {
    echo $row['column1'] . ' - ' . $row['column2'] . ' - ' . $row['column3'] . '<br>';
}

Keywords

PHP SELECT query column names advantages disadvantages

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