What are the potential pitfalls of not properly handling unique constraint violations in PHP code?

If unique constraint violations are not properly handled in PHP code, it can lead to unexpected errors or data inconsistencies in the database. To prevent this, you should catch the exception thrown by the database when a unique constraint is violated and handle it gracefully, such as by displaying a user-friendly error message or logging the issue for further investigation.

try {
    // Your database query that may cause a unique constraint violation
} catch (PDOException $e) {
    if ($e->errorInfo[1] == 1062) { // Check if the error code is for a unique constraint violation
        // Handle the unique constraint violation, such as displaying an error message
        echo "This record already exists in the database.";
    } else {
        // Handle other database errors
        echo "An error occurred: " . $e->getMessage();
    }
}