What potential pitfalls can arise from using SELECT * in PHP queries?

Using SELECT * in PHP queries can lead to potential pitfalls such as fetching unnecessary data, decreased performance due to retrieving more data than needed, and making the code less maintainable. To avoid these issues, it is recommended to explicitly specify the columns you want to retrieve in your SELECT statement. 

// Instead of using SELECT *
$sql = "SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = 1";
$result = $conn->query($sql);

// Specify the columns you want to retrieve
$sql = "SELECT id, username, email FROM users WHERE id = 1";
$result = $conn->query($sql);

Keywords

SQL injection performance security maintenance readability

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