What are the potential pitfalls of not optimizing traffic usage when working with external data in PHP?

Not optimizing traffic usage when working with external data in PHP can lead to slow loading times, increased server costs, and potential data loss or corruption. To solve this issue, you can implement caching mechanisms to store and retrieve data locally, reducing the need to fetch external data repeatedly. 

// Example of implementing caching to optimize traffic usage when working with external data in PHP

// Check if the data is already cached
$cacheKey = 'external_data';
$cacheDuration = 3600; // Cache data for 1 hour
$cachedData = apc_fetch($cacheKey);

if(!$cachedData) {
    // Fetch external data if not cached
    $externalData = fetchDataFromExternalSource();

    // Cache the fetched data
    apc_store($cacheKey, $externalData, $cacheDuration);
} else {
    // Use cached data
    $externalData = $cachedData;
}

// Process and use the external data
processExternalData($externalData);

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