Are there any potential pitfalls to be aware of when using PHP to dynamically generate a pulldown menu from a database or text file?

One potential pitfall when dynamically generating a pulldown menu from a database or text file is the risk of SQL injection if the input is not properly sanitized. To prevent this, always use prepared statements when querying the database to prevent malicious code from being executed. Additionally, make sure to escape any user input to prevent cross-site scripting attacks. 

// Connect to the database
$pdo = new PDO('mysql:host=localhost;dbname=mydatabase', 'username', 'password');

// Prepare a statement to retrieve the menu options
$stmt = $pdo->prepare('SELECT id, option_name FROM menu_options');
$stmt->execute();

// Generate the pulldown menu
echo '<select name="menu">';
while ($row = $stmt->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC)) {
    echo '<option value="' . htmlspecialchars($row['id']) . '">' . htmlspecialchars($row['option_name']) . '</option>';
}
echo '</select>';

Keywords

PHP dynamic pulldown menu database text file

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