What are the best practices for utilizing MySQL's BETWEEN function in PHP to query data within a specific date range?

When using MySQL's BETWEEN function in PHP to query data within a specific date range, it is important to ensure that the date format is compatible with MySQL's datetime format. This can be achieved by converting the PHP date format to MySQL's datetime format using the date() function. Additionally, it is crucial to properly sanitize user input to prevent SQL injection attacks.

// Specify the start and end dates in PHP datetime format
$start_date = date('Y-m-d H:i:s', strtotime('2022-01-01'));
$end_date = date('Y-m-d H:i:s', strtotime('2022-12-31'));

// Sanitize user input (if applicable)
$user_input = mysqli_real_escape_string($conn, $_POST['user_input']);

// Query data within the specified date range using MySQL's BETWEEN function
$query = "SELECT * FROM table_name WHERE date_column BETWEEN '$start_date' AND '$end_date' AND other_column = '$user_input'";
$result = mysqli_query($conn, $query);

// Process the query result
if(mysqli_num_rows($result) > 0) {
    while($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)) {
        // Process each row of data
    }
} else {
    echo "No results found.";
}