What are the potential issues when using SELECT * in PHP MySQL queries and how can they be avoided?

Using SELECT * in MySQL queries can lead to performance issues and unnecessary data retrieval, as it fetches all columns from the table. It's recommended to specify the columns you actually need in the SELECT statement to improve query efficiency. This also helps to avoid potential conflicts or errors when dealing with large datasets or tables with many columns.

// Specify the columns you need in the SELECT statement instead of using SELECT *
$query = "SELECT column1, column2, column3 FROM table_name WHERE condition = 'value'";
$result = mysqli_query($connection, $query);

// Loop through the results
while ($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)) {
    // Process the data
}