What are some common pitfalls for PHP beginners when trying to add new categories or features to a website?

One common pitfall for PHP beginners when adding new categories or features to a website is not properly sanitizing user input, which can lead to security vulnerabilities such as SQL injection attacks. To solve this issue, always use prepared statements or parameterized queries when interacting with a database to prevent malicious input.

// Example of using prepared statements to insert new category into database
$categoryName = $_POST['category_name'];

$stmt = $pdo->prepare("INSERT INTO categories (name) VALUES (:name)");
$stmt->bindParam(':name', $categoryName);
$stmt->execute();