What are some best practices for handling email validation in PHP, especially in user-facing applications like guestbooks?

When validating email addresses in PHP, it is important to use a combination of built-in functions and regular expressions to ensure the email is in a valid format. One common approach is to use the filter_var() function with the FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL filter to check if the email is valid. Additionally, you can use regular expressions to further validate the email address format.

$email = $_POST['email'];

if (filter_var($email, FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL)) {
    // Email is valid
    echo "Email is valid";
} else {
    // Email is not valid
    echo "Email is not valid";
}