How can PHP be used to prevent user manipulation of POST variables in a form submission?

When a form is submitted using POST method, users can manipulate the data being sent by modifying the POST variables before submitting the form. To prevent this, you can use PHP to sanitize and validate the POST variables before processing them. This can be done by using functions like filter_input() or filter_var() to sanitize the input data and validate it against a specific format or range.

// Sanitize and validate POST variables
$username = filter_input(INPUT_POST, 'username', FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);
$email = filter_input(INPUT_POST, 'email', FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL);

// Check if variables are set and valid before processing
if($username && $email) {
    // Process the form data
    // Your code here
} else {
    // Handle invalid input
    echo "Invalid input. Please try again.";
}