What are common pitfalls to watch out for when using PHP to create forms for data input and saving?

One common pitfall when using PHP to create forms for data input and saving is not properly sanitizing user input, which can lead to security vulnerabilities such as SQL injection attacks. To prevent this, always use prepared statements or parameterized queries when interacting with a database to prevent malicious input from being executed as code. 

// Example of using prepared statements to prevent SQL injection

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

// Prepare SQL statement with placeholders
$stmt = $pdo->prepare("INSERT INTO users (username, email) VALUES (:username, :email)");

// Bind parameters to placeholders
$stmt->bindParam(':username', $_POST['username']);
$stmt->bindParam(':email', $_POST['email']);

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

Keywords

SQL injection XSS attacks form validation CSRF protection data sanitization

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