How can special characters like '&' in query parameters affect MySQL queries in PHP?

Special characters like '&' in query parameters can cause issues in MySQL queries in PHP because they are reserved characters in URLs and can be misinterpreted by the database. To avoid this problem, you should properly escape and sanitize user input before using it in your SQL queries. This can be done using functions like mysqli_real_escape_string() or prepared statements. 

// Example of using mysqli_real_escape_string to sanitize input
$param = mysqli_real_escape_string($connection, $_GET['param']);

// Example of using prepared statements to sanitize input
$stmt = $connection->prepare("SELECT * FROM table WHERE column = ?");
$stmt->bind_param("s", $_GET['param']);
$stmt->execute();

Keywords

PHP MySQL query parameters special characters security

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