What are common pitfalls to avoid when using PHP to create dynamic content like calendars?

One common pitfall to avoid when creating dynamic content like calendars in PHP is not properly sanitizing user input, which can lead to security vulnerabilities such as SQL injection attacks. To prevent this, always use prepared statements when interacting with a database to ensure that user input is properly escaped.

// Example of using prepared statements to prevent SQL injection
$stmt = $pdo->prepare('SELECT * FROM events WHERE date = :date');
$stmt->execute(['date' => $date]);
$results = $stmt->fetchAll();