How can PHP developers secure against malicious code when using PDO without prepared statements?

When using PDO without prepared statements, PHP developers can secure against malicious code by properly sanitizing user input before incorporating it into SQL queries. This can involve using functions like `htmlspecialchars()` or `mysqli_real_escape_string()` to escape special characters that could be used for SQL injection attacks. 

// Example of sanitizing user input before using it in a PDO query
$user_input = $_POST['user_input'];
$sanitized_input = htmlspecialchars($user_input);

$query = "SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = '$sanitized_input'";
$stmt = $pdo->query($query);

Keywords

PHP PDO prepared statements SQL injection security

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