What are best practices for handling undefined variables and indexes in PHP when processing form data from POST requests?

When processing form data from POST requests in PHP, it is important to handle undefined variables and indexes to prevent errors. One common approach is to use the isset() function to check if a variable or index is set before accessing it. This helps avoid notices or warnings when trying to access data that may not exist in the POST request.

// Check if the form field 'username' is set in the POST request
if(isset($_POST['username'])){
    $username = $_POST['username'];
    // Process the username data
} else {
    // Handle the case where 'username' is not set in the POST request
}