What are the best practices for debugging SQL queries in PHP to identify errors like the one mentioned in the forum thread?

Issue: The error mentioned in the forum thread could be due to syntax errors in the SQL query being executed in PHP. To debug such issues, it is recommended to echo or log the SQL query before execution to identify any mistakes in the query structure. PHP Code Snippet:

// Assuming $conn is the database connection object
$sql = "SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = $user_id";
echo $sql; // Output the SQL query for debugging purposes
$result = $conn->query($sql);

if ($result) {
    // Process the query result
} else {
    echo "Error: " . $conn->error; // Output any SQL errors for debugging
}