What best practices should be followed when using JOINs in PHP to avoid missing or duplicating entries in the result set?

When using JOINs in PHP, it is important to specify the columns to select explicitly to avoid missing or duplicating entries in the result set. This ensures that only the necessary columns are retrieved and displayed, preventing any unintended data discrepancies. 

// Specify the columns to select explicitly
$query = "SELECT table1.column1, table1.column2, table2.column3 FROM table1 JOIN table2 ON table1.id = table2.id";

$result = mysqli_query($conn, $query);

// Fetch and display the results
while ($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)) {
    echo $row['column1'] . " - " . $row['column2'] . " - " . $row['column3'] . "<br>";
}

Keywords

JOINs PHP result set missing entries duplicating entries

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