What is the difference between using a foreach loop and a while loop to iterate over results fetched from a MySQL query in PHP?

When iterating over results fetched from a MySQL query in PHP, using a foreach loop is generally more convenient and cleaner than using a while loop. This is because a foreach loop is specifically designed for iterating over arrays and objects, which is the format that results from a MySQL query are typically returned in. On the other hand, a while loop is more generic and requires manual handling of the iteration process, such as fetching rows one by one from the result set. 

// Using a foreach loop to iterate over results fetched from a MySQL query
$query = "SELECT * FROM table_name";
$result = mysqli_query($connection, $query);

while($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)) {
    // Process each row
    echo $row['column_name'] . "<br>";
}

Keywords

PHP foreach loop while loop MySQL query iteration

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