What is the best practice for selecting specific columns in a MySQLi query in PHP instead of using "SELECT *"?

When selecting specific columns in a MySQLi query in PHP, it is best practice to explicitly list out the columns you want to retrieve instead of using "SELECT *". This can improve query performance by only fetching the necessary data and reduce the amount of data transferred between the database and the application. 

// Connect to database
$mysqli = new mysqli("localhost", "username", "password", "database");

// Define the columns you want to select
$columns = "column1, column2, column3";

// Prepare and execute the query with specific columns
$query = $mysqli->query("SELECT $columns FROM table_name");

// Fetch and process the results
while ($row = $query->fetch_assoc()) {
    // Process each row
}

// Close the connection
$mysqli->close();

Keywords

MySQLi query columns SELECT PHP

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