What are the potential pitfalls of using boolean values in a MySQL database when interacting with PHP?

When using boolean values in a MySQL database with PHP, one potential pitfall is that MySQL does not have a native boolean data type, so boolean values are stored as integers (0 for false, 1 for true). This can lead to confusion when retrieving and comparing boolean values in PHP. To avoid this issue, it is recommended to use integer values (0 and 1) for boolean fields in the database and explicitly cast them to boolean values in PHP using the `boolval()` function. 

// Retrieve boolean value from MySQL database
$result = $mysqli->query("SELECT is_active FROM users WHERE id = 1");
$row = $result->fetch_assoc();
$is_active = boolval($row['is_active']);

// Compare boolean value in PHP
if ($is_active) {
    echo "User is active";
} else {
    echo "User is inactive";
}

Keywords

MySQL boolean values PHP data type type conversion

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