What are the potential issues with having multiple columns with the same name in a MySQL database table?

Having multiple columns with the same name in a MySQL database table can lead to ambiguity and confusion when querying the database. To solve this issue, you can use table aliases in your SQL queries to differentiate between the columns with the same name. 

<?php
// Connect to database
$servername = "localhost";
$username = "username";
$password = "password";
$dbname = "dbname";

$conn = new mysqli($servername, $username, $password, $dbname);

// Check connection
if ($conn->connect_error) {
    die("Connection failed: " . $conn->connect_error);
}

// Query with table aliases to differentiate columns with the same name
$sql = "SELECT table1.column1 AS column1_table1, table2.column1 AS column1_table2 FROM table1 INNER JOIN table2 ON table1.id = table2.id";

$result = $conn->query($sql);

if ($result->num_rows > 0) {
    while($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
        echo "Column 1 from table 1: " . $row["column1_table1"] . "<br>";
        echo "Column 1 from table 2: " . $row["column1_table2"] . "<br>";
    }
} else {
    echo "0 results";
}

$conn->close();
?>

Keywords

MySQL database table columns duplicate names conflicts

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