What are the best practices for optimizing page load times when dealing with large data sets in PHP web applications?

When dealing with large data sets in PHP web applications, it is important to optimize page load times to ensure a smooth user experience. One way to achieve this is by implementing pagination, which divides the data into smaller chunks that are loaded dynamically as the user navigates through the pages. This helps reduce the amount of data being processed and displayed on each page load, leading to faster loading times.

// Example code for implementing pagination in PHP

// Define the number of items to display per page
$items_per_page = 10;

// Calculate the total number of pages based on the total number of items
$total_items = count($data);
$total_pages = ceil($total_items / $items_per_page);

// Get the current page number from the URL query parameter
$current_page = isset($_GET['page']) ? $_GET['page'] : 1;

// Calculate the starting index for the current page
$start_index = ($current_page - 1) * $items_per_page;

// Slice the data array to display only the items for the current page
$paginated_data = array_slice($data, $start_index, $items_per_page);

// Display the paginated data on the page
foreach ($paginated_data as $item) {
    echo $item . "<br>";
}

// Display pagination links to navigate between pages
for ($i = 1; $i <= $total_pages; $i++) {
    echo "<a href='?page=$i'>$i</a> ";
}