What are the drawbacks of using SELECT * in SQL queries, as highlighted in the forum discussion?

Using SELECT * in SQL queries can lead to performance issues because it retrieves all columns from the table, even if they are not needed. This can result in unnecessary data transfer and slower query execution times. It is recommended to explicitly specify the columns needed in the SELECT statement to improve query efficiency. 

// Specify the columns needed in the SELECT statement
$sql = "SELECT column1, column2, column3 FROM table_name WHERE condition";
$result = mysqli_query($conn, $sql);

if (mysqli_num_rows($result) > 0) {
    while ($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)) {
        // Process the retrieved data
    }
} else {
    echo "No results found";
}

Keywords

SQL queries SELECT * performance data retrieval database optimization

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