How can one avoid common pitfalls when dynamically generating and displaying content in PHP?

One common pitfall when dynamically generating and displaying content in PHP is not properly sanitizing user input, which can lead to security vulnerabilities like SQL injection or cross-site scripting attacks. To avoid this, always use functions like htmlspecialchars() or mysqli_real_escape_string() to sanitize user input before displaying it on the page. 

// Sanitize user input before displaying it on the page
$user_input = $_POST['user_input'];
$sanitized_input = mysqli_real_escape_string($connection, $user_input);

echo "<p>" . htmlspecialchars($sanitized_input) . "</p>";

Keywords

SQL injection cross-site scripting htmlentities prepared statements output buffering

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