In the context of PHP development, what are some best practices for handling and validating user input to prevent security vulnerabilities and improve code performance?

To prevent security vulnerabilities and improve code performance, it is essential to properly handle and validate user input in PHP. This includes sanitizing input data to prevent SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and other malicious attacks. Additionally, validating user input helps ensure that the data is in the expected format, reducing errors and improving overall code quality. 

// Example of sanitizing user input to prevent SQL injection
$user_input = $_POST['user_input'];
$clean_input = mysqli_real_escape_string($connection, $user_input);
```

```php
// Example of validating user input to ensure it is in the expected format
$user_input = $_POST['user_input'];
if (filter_var($user_input, FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL)) {
    // Proceed with processing the email input
} else {
    // Handle invalid email input
}

Keywords

input validation security vulnerabilities code performance PHP functions error handling

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