In what ways can the use of PDO in PHP enhance the security and efficiency of user verification processes?

Using PDO in PHP can enhance the security and efficiency of user verification processes by providing a secure way to interact with databases, preventing SQL injection attacks, and allowing for parameterized queries to be used, which helps sanitize user input.

// Establish a connection to the database using PDO
$dsn = 'mysql:host=localhost;dbname=mydatabase';
$username = 'username';
$password = 'password';
$options = array(
    PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE => PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION,
    PDO::ATTR_EMULATE_PREPARES => false
);

try {
    $pdo = new PDO($dsn, $username, $password, $options);
} catch (PDOException $e) {
    die('Connection failed: ' . $e->getMessage());
}

// Prepare a statement for user verification
$stmt = $pdo->prepare('SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = :username AND password = :password');

// Bind parameters and execute the statement
$stmt->bindParam(':username', $username);
$stmt->bindParam(':password', $password);
$stmt->execute();

// Fetch the result
$user = $stmt->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);

if ($user) {
    // User verification successful
} else {
    // User verification failed
}