What are best practices for validating user inputs in PHP?

Validating user inputs is crucial to ensure data integrity and security in PHP applications. Best practices include using PHP's built-in filtering and validation functions, such as filter_var() and ctype functions, to sanitize and validate user inputs. Additionally, developers should always validate inputs on the server-side to prevent malicious attacks like SQL injection or cross-site scripting.

// Example of validating user input in PHP
$userInput = $_POST['user_input'];

// Sanitize and validate user input using filter_var()
$filteredInput = filter_var($userInput, FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);

if ($filteredInput !== false) {
    // Input is valid, proceed with further processing
} else {
    // Input is invalid, handle the error accordingly
}