Are there best practices for escaping characters in PHP code to avoid errors, particularly when dealing with dynamic content like database values?

When dealing with dynamic content like database values in PHP, it's crucial to escape characters to prevent errors and potential security vulnerabilities like SQL injection attacks. One common method to escape characters is by using prepared statements with parameterized queries when interacting with databases. This helps to separate the SQL query logic from the user input, ensuring that any special characters are properly handled.

// Example of using prepared statements to escape characters in PHP
$pdo = new PDO('mysql:host=localhost;dbname=my_database', 'username', 'password');
$stmt = $pdo->prepare('SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = :username');
$stmt->bindParam(':username', $username);
$stmt->execute();
$results = $stmt->fetchAll();