What are common pitfalls when using special characters like +, ', and " in MySQL databases with PHP?

Common pitfalls when using special characters like +, ', and " in MySQL databases with PHP include SQL injection vulnerabilities and syntax errors. To prevent these issues, it is important to properly escape special characters before inserting them into SQL queries. This can be done using the mysqli_real_escape_string function in PHP.

// Connect to database
$mysqli = new mysqli("localhost", "username", "password", "database");

// Check connection
if ($mysqli->connect_error) {
    die("Connection failed: " . $mysqli->connect_error);
}

// Escape special characters before inserting into SQL query
$special_character = "+";
$escaped_special_character = $mysqli->real_escape_string($special_character);

// Insert data into database
$sql = "INSERT INTO table_name (column_name) VALUES ('$escaped_special_character')";
if ($mysqli->query($sql) === TRUE) {
    echo "Record inserted successfully";
} else {
    echo "Error: " . $sql . "<br>" . $mysqli->error;
}

// Close connection
$mysqli->close();