What is the best approach to retrieve only specific records from a database in PHP using a WHERE clause?

When retrieving specific records from a database in PHP, you can use a WHERE clause in your SQL query to filter the results based on certain criteria. This allows you to narrow down the data returned to only the records that meet the specified conditions. By including the WHERE clause in your query, you can effectively target and retrieve the exact records you need from the database.

// Connect to the database
$servername = "localhost";
$username = "username";
$password = "password";
$dbname = "database";

$conn = new mysqli($servername, $username, $password, $dbname);

// Check connection
if ($conn->connect_error) {
    die("Connection failed: " . $conn->connect_error);
}

// Retrieve specific records using a WHERE clause
$sql = "SELECT * FROM table_name WHERE column_name = 'specific_value'";
$result = $conn->query($sql);

if ($result->num_rows > 0) {
    // Output data of each row
    while($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
        echo "Column 1: " . $row["column1_name"]. " - Column 2: " . $row["column2_name"]. "<br>";
    }
} else {
    echo "0 results";
}

$conn->close();