What potential pitfalls should be considered when dealing with nested categories and subcategories in PHP?

When dealing with nested categories and subcategories in PHP, potential pitfalls to consider include the complexity of managing multiple levels of nesting, the possibility of infinite loops if the hierarchy is not properly structured, and the performance impact of recursively traversing nested categories. To avoid these pitfalls, it is important to carefully design the database schema and use recursive functions to handle nested categories efficiently.

function printCategories($categories, $parent_id = 0, $level = 0) {
    foreach ($categories as $category) {
        if ($category['parent_id'] == $parent_id) {
            echo str_repeat('-', $level) . $category['name'] . "\n";
            printCategories($categories, $category['id'], $level + 1);
        }
    }
}

// Example usage
$categories = [
    ['id' => 1, 'parent_id' => 0, 'name' => 'Category 1'],
    ['id' => 2, 'parent_id' => 0, 'name' => 'Category 2'],
    ['id' => 3, 'parent_id' => 1, 'name' => 'Subcategory 1.1'],
    ['id' => 4, 'parent_id' => 1, 'name' => 'Subcategory 1.2'],
    ['id' => 5, 'parent_id' => 3, 'name' => 'Subcategory 1.1.1'],
];

printCategories($categories);