What are the best practices for handling inventory data retrieval in PHP, especially when dealing with large amounts of data and frequent updates?

When dealing with large amounts of inventory data and frequent updates in PHP, it is best to use efficient database querying techniques and caching mechanisms to optimize data retrieval performance. One way to achieve this is by utilizing indexing on database columns, implementing pagination for fetching data in smaller chunks, and utilizing caching mechanisms like Redis or Memcached to store frequently accessed data.

// Example of implementing efficient inventory data retrieval using pagination and caching

// Connect to the database
$pdo = new PDO("mysql:host=localhost;dbname=inventory", "username", "password");

// Set pagination parameters
$limit = 10; // Number of items to fetch per page
$page = isset($_GET['page']) ? $_GET['page'] : 1; // Current page number

// Check if data is cached
$cacheKey = 'inventory_data_page_' . $page;
if ($data = apc_fetch($cacheKey)) {
    // Data found in cache, return cached data
    echo json_encode($data);
} else {
    // Data not found in cache, fetch data from database
    $offset = ($page - 1) * $limit;
    $stmt = $pdo->prepare("SELECT * FROM inventory_data LIMIT :limit OFFSET :offset");
    $stmt->bindParam(':limit', $limit, PDO::PARAM_INT);
    $stmt->bindParam(':offset', $offset, PDO::PARAM_INT);
    $stmt->execute();
    $result = $stmt->fetchAll(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);

    // Cache the fetched data
    apc_store($cacheKey, $result);

    // Return the fetched data
    echo json_encode($result);
}