What potential pitfalls can arise when using MySQL ORDER BY with PHP to sort news entries by date?

When using MySQL ORDER BY with PHP to sort news entries by date, a potential pitfall is that the date format in the database may not be compatible with the ORDER BY clause, leading to unexpected sorting results. To avoid this issue, it is important to ensure that the date format in the database matches the format specified in the ORDER BY clause.

// Assuming the date column in the database is in the format 'Y-m-d H:i:s'
// You can use DATE_FORMAT function in the SQL query to format the date before sorting

$query = "SELECT * FROM news_entries ORDER BY DATE_FORMAT(date_column, '%Y-%m-%d %H:%i:%s') DESC";
$result = mysqli_query($conn, $query);

// Fetch and display the sorted news entries
while ($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)) {
    echo $row['title'] . " - " . $row['date_column'] . "<br>";
}