What are common pitfalls to avoid when processing form data in PHP to ensure proper functionality and error handling?

Common pitfalls to avoid when processing form data in PHP include not properly sanitizing input data to prevent SQL injection attacks, not validating input data to ensure it meets expected criteria, and not handling errors effectively to provide meaningful feedback to users. 

// Example of sanitizing input data to prevent SQL injection attacks
$username = mysqli_real_escape_string($conn, $_POST['username']);
$password = mysqli_real_escape_string($conn, $_POST['password']);

// Example of validating input data to ensure it meets expected criteria
if (!filter_var($_POST['email'], FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL)) {
    // handle invalid email address error
}

// Example of handling errors effectively to provide meaningful feedback to users
if ($error) {
    echo "An error occurred: " . $error;
}

Keywords

SQL injection cross-site scripting form validation error reporting data sanitization

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