How can PHP developers avoid common pitfalls when working with form data?

One common pitfall when working with form data in PHP is not properly sanitizing and validating user input, which can lead to security vulnerabilities such as SQL injection or cross-site scripting attacks. To avoid this, developers should always sanitize and validate user input before using it in their application. 

// Example of sanitizing and validating form data in PHP

// Retrieve form data
$username = $_POST['username'];
$password = $_POST['password'];

// Sanitize input
$username = htmlspecialchars($username);
$password = htmlspecialchars($password);

// Validate input
if(empty($username) || empty($password)) {
    // Handle error, display message to user, etc.
} else {
    // Proceed with processing the form data
}

Keywords

validation sanitization XSS CSRF input filtering

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