What are the potential pitfalls of using conditional statements like 'if' in PHP for data manipulation?

One potential pitfall of using conditional statements like 'if' in PHP for data manipulation is the possibility of creating nested conditions that can become hard to manage and debug. To solve this issue, consider using switch statements for better readability and maintainability of your code.

// Example of using switch statement for data manipulation
$fruit = "apple";

switch ($fruit) {
    case "apple":
        $color = "red";
        break;
    case "banana":
        $color = "yellow";
        break;
    case "orange":
        $color = "orange";
        break;
    default:
        $color = "unknown";
}

echo "The color of the fruit is: " . $color;