Are there any best practices for handling user input in PHP scripts to avoid performance issues?

When handling user input in PHP scripts, it is important to sanitize and validate the input to prevent security vulnerabilities and performance issues. One best practice is to use PHP's filter_input function to sanitize input data and ensure it meets the expected format. Additionally, avoid executing database queries directly with user input to prevent SQL injection attacks.

// Sanitize and validate user input using filter_input
$user_input = filter_input(INPUT_POST, 'user_input', FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);

// Use prepared statements to execute database queries
$stmt = $pdo->prepare("SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = :username");
$stmt->bindParam(':username', $user_input);
$stmt->execute();