How can PHP be used to efficiently handle user input and display it in a form for editing?

When handling user input in PHP, it is important to sanitize and validate the input to prevent security vulnerabilities. To efficiently display user input in a form for editing, you can use PHP to populate the form fields with the user's input data. This can be done by retrieving the input data from a database or session variable and echoing it within the form fields.

<?php
// Assume $userInput is the variable containing the user input data

// Sanitize and validate user input
$userInput = htmlspecialchars($_POST['user_input']);
$userInput = filter_var($userInput, FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);

// Display user input in a form for editing
echo '<form method="post" action="edit.php">';
echo '<input type="text" name="user_input" value="' . $userInput . '">';
echo '<input type="submit" value="Submit">';
echo '</form>';
?>