How can PHP developers ensure proper data sanitization and validation to prevent vulnerabilities like XSS attacks in form submissions?

To prevent vulnerabilities like XSS attacks in form submissions, PHP developers can ensure proper data sanitization and validation by using functions like htmlspecialchars() to encode user input and prevent malicious scripts from being executed.

// Sanitize and validate form input to prevent XSS attacks
$name = htmlspecialchars($_POST['name']);
$email = filter_var($_POST['email'], FILTER_SANITIZE_EMAIL);
$message = htmlspecialchars($_POST['message']);

// Process sanitized data
// (e.g., save to database, send email, etc.)