How can PHP be used to validate and process user input for login and registration forms effectively?

To validate and process user input for login and registration forms effectively in PHP, you can use functions like filter_var() to sanitize and validate input data, and password_hash() to securely hash passwords before storing them in the database. Additionally, you can use prepared statements with PDO or MySQLi to prevent SQL injection attacks.

// Sample code for validating and processing user input for login form

// Sanitize and validate email input
$email = filter_var($_POST['email'], FILTER_SANITIZE_EMAIL);
if (!filter_var($email, FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL)) {
    // Handle invalid email input
}

// Sanitize password input
$password = filter_var($_POST['password'], FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);

// Hash the password before storing it in the database
$hashedPassword = password_hash($password, PASSWORD_DEFAULT);

// Use prepared statements to prevent SQL injection
$stmt = $pdo->prepare("SELECT * FROM users WHERE email = ?");
$stmt->execute([$email]);
$user = $stmt->fetch();

if ($user && password_verify($password, $user['password'])) {
    // User is authenticated, proceed with login
} else {
    // Handle invalid login credentials
}