What is the best approach to handle a situation where a variable in a MySQL query may be empty in PHP?

When a variable in a MySQL query may be empty in PHP, it is important to handle this situation to prevent errors or unexpected behavior. One approach is to check if the variable is empty before constructing the query, and if it is empty, handle it accordingly (such as setting a default value or skipping the query altogether).

// Assuming $variable is the variable that may be empty
if (!empty($variable)) {
    $query = "SELECT * FROM table WHERE column = '$variable'";
    // Execute the query
} else {
    // Handle the empty variable case, such as setting a default value or skipping the query
}