What steps can be taken to troubleshoot and resolve issues with PHP scripts that involve external API requests and database interactions, like the Acuity Scheduling integration mentioned in the forum thread?

Issue: Troubleshooting and resolving issues with PHP scripts involving external API requests and database interactions, such as the Acuity Scheduling integration, can be done by checking for errors in the API response, ensuring proper authentication credentials are used, and verifying database connection settings. PHP Code Snippet:

// Example code snippet for troubleshooting PHP scripts with Acuity Scheduling integration

// Make API request to Acuity Scheduling
$api_url = 'https://api.acuityscheduling.com/v1/appointments';
$api_key = 'YOUR_API_KEY';
$api_secret = 'YOUR_API_SECRET';

$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $api_url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array(
    'Authorization: Basic ' . base64_encode($api_key . ':' . $api_secret)
));

$response = curl_exec($ch);

if($response === false) {
    echo 'Error: ' . curl_error($ch);
} else {
    // Process API response
    $data = json_decode($response, true);
    if($data) {
        // Insert data into database
        $db_connection = mysqli_connect('localhost', 'username', 'password', 'database');
        if($db_connection) {
            foreach($data as $appointment) {
                $query = "INSERT INTO appointments (id, name, date) VALUES ('{$appointment['id']}', '{$appointment['name']}', '{$appointment['date']}')";
                mysqli_query($db_connection, $query);
            }
            mysqli_close($db_connection);
        } else {
            echo 'Error connecting to database: ' . mysqli_connect_error();
        }
    } else {
        echo 'Error parsing API response';
    }
}

curl_close($ch);