What are some common pitfalls for PHP beginners when setting up a new forum?

One common pitfall for PHP beginners when setting up a new forum is not properly sanitizing user input, which can leave the forum vulnerable to SQL injection attacks. To solve this issue, always use prepared statements or parameterized queries when interacting with the database to prevent SQL injection. 

// Example of using prepared statements to sanitize user input
$stmt = $pdo->prepare('SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = :username');
$stmt->bindParam(':username', $_POST['username']);
$stmt->execute();

Keywords

MySQL database connection SQL injection session management form validation

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