What are some common mistakes to avoid when using regular expressions in PHP for database operations?

One common mistake to avoid when using regular expressions in PHP for database operations is not properly escaping special characters in the regular expression pattern. This can lead to SQL injection vulnerabilities. To solve this issue, it's important to use prepared statements with parameterized queries to safely interact with the database. 

// Incorrect way without escaping special characters
$pattern = '/^[a-zA-Z0-9]+$/';
$sql = "SELECT * FROM users WHERE username REGEXP '$pattern'";
$result = $conn->query($sql);

// Correct way with prepared statements
$pattern = '/^[a-zA-Z0-9]+$/';
$stmt = $conn->prepare("SELECT * FROM users WHERE username REGEXP ?");
$stmt->bind_param("s", $pattern);
$stmt->execute();
$result = $stmt->get_result();

Keywords

regular expressions PHP database operations mistakes avoid

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