What are common pitfalls to avoid when using PHP scripts to interact with a database for client-side visualization?

One common pitfall to avoid when using PHP scripts to interact with a database for client-side visualization is not properly sanitizing user input, which can lead to SQL injection attacks. To prevent this, always use prepared statements or parameterized queries to safely interact with the database. 

// Example code snippet using prepared statements to interact with a database

// Establish a connection to the database
$pdo = new PDO('mysql:host=localhost;dbname=mydatabase', 'username', 'password');

// Prepare a SQL statement with a placeholder for user input
$stmt = $pdo->prepare('SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = :username');

// Bind the user input to the placeholder
$stmt->bindParam(':username', $_POST['username']);

// Execute the query
$stmt->execute();

// Fetch the results
$results = $stmt->fetchAll();

// Loop through the results and display them
foreach ($results as $row) {
    echo $row['username'] . '<br>';
}

Keywords

SQL injection PDO prepared statements data validation error handling

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