What are the best practices for handling SELECT queries in PHP scripts to avoid using "SELECT *"?

Using "SELECT *" in SQL queries can lead to performance issues and potential security vulnerabilities in your PHP scripts. It is best practice to explicitly specify the columns you want to select in your query to improve query performance and avoid fetching unnecessary data. By specifying the columns, you can also prevent potential security risks such as SQL injection attacks. 

// Specify the columns you want to select in your SQL query
$pdo = new PDO("mysql:host=localhost;dbname=mydatabase", "username", "password");
$stmt = $pdo->prepare("SELECT column1, column2, column3 FROM mytable WHERE id = :id");
$stmt->bindParam(':id', $id);
$stmt->execute();
$rows = $stmt->fetchAll(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);

// Iterate through the results
foreach ($rows as $row) {
    // Handle the results here
}

Keywords

SQL injection PDO prepared statements database security query optimization

Related Questions