What are the potential consequences of altering the collation settings in a database when working with PHP?

Altering the collation settings in a database when working with PHP can lead to issues with data consistency and sorting. To avoid potential consequences, it's important to ensure that the collation settings in the database match the character set used in the PHP application.

// Set the collation settings in PHP to match the database
mysqli_set_charset($conn, 'utf8');