What are the potential drawbacks of using "SELECT * FROM" in PHP MySQL queries?

Using "SELECT * FROM" in PHP MySQL queries can lead to performance issues and consume unnecessary resources, as it retrieves all columns from a table even if they are not needed. It can also make the code less maintainable as it becomes harder to track which columns are being used. To solve this issue, it is recommended to explicitly specify the columns needed in the SELECT statement. 

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

// Fetch and process the result
if (mysqli_num_rows($result) > 0) {
    while ($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)) {
        // Process the data
    }
}

Keywords

SELECT * PHP MySQL queries drawbacks

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