What are the best practices for handling situations where a required PHP extension is not available on the server?
When a required PHP extension is not available on the server, one solution is to check for the extension's existence before trying to use it in your code. This can be done using the `extension_loaded()` function in PHP. If the extension is not available, you can display an error message to the user or gracefully handle the situation in your code.
if (!extension_loaded('example_extension')) {
echo 'Error: Required PHP extension "example_extension" is not available on this server.';
// Handle the situation gracefully or display a user-friendly error message
} else {
// Proceed with using the extension
}