What is the significance of GROUP_CONCAT in PHP when dealing with relational database data?

GROUP_CONCAT in PHP is significant when dealing with relational database data as it allows you to concatenate multiple rows of data into a single string, making it easier to work with and display the data in a more organized manner. This can be particularly useful when you have multiple related records that you want to display together in a single column.

// Example of using GROUP_CONCAT to concatenate multiple rows of data in a single column
$query = "SELECT parent_id, GROUP_CONCAT(child_name SEPARATOR ', ') AS children_names 
          FROM children_table 
          GROUP BY parent_id";

$result = mysqli_query($connection, $query);

while ($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)) {
    echo "Parent ID: " . $row['parent_id'] . "<br>";
    echo "Children Names: " . $row['children_names'] . "<br>";
}