How can the issue of the email validation function being skipped in the provided PHP code be addressed effectively?

The issue of the email validation function being skipped can be addressed by adding an if statement to check if the email field is not empty before calling the validation function. This will ensure that the validation function is only executed when there is actually an email address provided.

if(!empty($_POST['email'])) {
    $email = $_POST['email'];
    if(validateEmail($email)) {
        // Email is valid, proceed with further processing
    } else {
        // Display an error message for invalid email
    }
} else {
    // Display an error message for empty email field
}