What are some best practices for handling form data in PHP to ensure only integer values are accepted?

When handling form data in PHP, it's important to validate the input to ensure that only integer values are accepted. One way to achieve this is by using PHP's filter_var function with the FILTER_VALIDATE_INT filter. This will check if the input is an integer and return it if it is, or false if it's not. Additionally, you can use the intval function to convert the input to an integer if needed.

// Assuming $input is the form data variable
$input = $_POST['input']; // Retrieve form data

// Validate input as integer
if (filter_var($input, FILTER_VALIDATE_INT) !== false) {
    $integerValue = intval($input); // Convert input to integer
    // Proceed with using $integerValue
} else {
    // Handle invalid input (e.g. show error message)
}