What is the best practice for merging data from two tables in a database using PHP?

When merging data from two tables in a database using PHP, the best practice is to use SQL JOIN queries to combine the data from both tables based on a common column. This allows you to retrieve related data from both tables in a single query result set.

<?php

// 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);
}

// SQL query to merge data from two tables using INNER JOIN
$sql = "SELECT table1.column1, table2.column2
        FROM table1
        INNER JOIN table2 ON table1.common_column = table2.common_column";

$result = $conn->query($sql);

if ($result->num_rows > 0) {
    // Output data of each row
    while($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
        echo "Column1: " . $row["column1"]. " - Column2: " . $row["column2"]. "<br>";
    }
} else {
    echo "0 results";
}

$conn->close();

?>