What are the best practices for comparing data in PHP to identify missing entries in a database?

When comparing data in PHP to identify missing entries in a database, one of the best practices is to retrieve all the existing entries from the database and compare them with the data you want to check. This can be done by looping through the data to be checked and checking if each entry exists in the database. If an entry is not found in the database, it is considered a missing entry.

// Retrieve all existing entries from the database
$query = "SELECT * FROM table_name";
$result = mysqli_query($connection, $query);

$existing_entries = [];
while ($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)) {
    $existing_entries[] = $row['entry_field'];
}

// Data to be checked for missing entries
$data_to_check = ["entry1", "entry2", "entry3"];

// Compare data with existing entries in the database
$missing_entries = array_diff($data_to_check, $existing_entries);

// Output missing entries
if (!empty($missing_entries)) {
    echo "Missing entries: " . implode(", ", $missing_entries);
} else {
    echo "No missing entries found.";
}