How can SQL injection vulnerabilities be mitigated in PHP code, especially when handling user input for database queries?

SQL injection vulnerabilities can be mitigated in PHP code by using prepared statements with parameterized queries instead of directly concatenating user input into SQL queries. This approach separates the SQL query logic from the user input, preventing malicious input from being executed as SQL commands.

// Establish a database connection
$pdo = new PDO('mysql:host=localhost;dbname=my_database', 'username', 'password');

// Prepare a SQL statement with a parameterized query
$stmt = $pdo->prepare('SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = :username');

// Bind the user input to the parameter
$stmt->bindParam(':username', $_POST['username']);

// Execute the query
$stmt->execute();

// Fetch the results
$results = $stmt->fetchAll();