How can the use of htmlspecialchars in PHP forms affect the input data and output display?

Using htmlspecialchars in PHP forms helps prevent Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) attacks by converting special characters like < and > into HTML entities. This ensures that user input is displayed as text rather than being interpreted as HTML code, thus protecting against malicious scripts being executed. To implement this, simply use htmlspecialchars when displaying user input in your PHP code. 

// Using htmlspecialchars to prevent XSS attacks
$user_input = $_POST[&#039;user_input&#039;]; // Assuming user input is received via POST method
echo htmlspecialchars($user_input);

Keywords

htmlspecialchars PHP forms input data output display security vulnerability

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