How can the use of placeholders and prepared statements in PHP improve the security and efficiency of database update operations?

Using placeholders and prepared statements in PHP can improve the security of database update operations by preventing SQL injection attacks. Placeholders allow you to separate the SQL query from the user input, reducing the risk of malicious input altering the query structure. Prepared statements also help improve efficiency by allowing the database to compile the query once and execute it multiple times with different parameters.

// Using placeholders and prepared statements to update a record in a database

// Assuming $conn is the database connection object

// Prepare the SQL statement with placeholders
$stmt = $conn->prepare("UPDATE users SET name = :name WHERE id = :id");

// Bind the parameters
$stmt->bindParam(':name', $name);
$stmt->bindParam(':id', $id);

// Set the parameter values
$name = "John Doe";
$id = 1;

// Execute the prepared statement
$stmt->execute();