Are there any best practices for handling user input and database queries in PHP forms?

When handling user input in PHP forms, it is important to sanitize and validate the input to prevent SQL injection attacks and other security vulnerabilities. One common best practice is to use prepared statements when executing database queries to prevent SQL injection attacks. This involves using placeholders for user input in the query and binding the actual values separately. 

// Sanitize and validate user input
$username = filter_var($_POST['username'], FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);
$email = filter_var($_POST['email'], FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL);

// Prepare the SQL statement with placeholders
$stmt = $pdo->prepare("INSERT INTO users (username, email) VALUES (:username, :email)");

// Bind the actual values to the placeholders
$stmt->bindParam(':username', $username);
$stmt->bindParam(':email', $email);

// Execute the query
$stmt->execute();

Keywords

SQL injection prepared statements input validation htmlspecialchars PDO

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