What are some common pitfalls to watch out for when handling user input for database insertion in PHP?

One common pitfall when handling user input for database insertion in PHP is not properly sanitizing the input, which can leave your application vulnerable to SQL injection attacks. To prevent this, always use prepared statements with parameterized queries to safely insert user input into the database.

// Establish a database connection
$pdo = new PDO('mysql:host=localhost;dbname=mydatabase', 'username', 'password');

// Prepare a SQL statement with a parameterized query
$stmt = $pdo->prepare('INSERT INTO users (username, email) VALUES (:username, :email)');

// Bind the user input to the prepared statement
$stmt->bindParam(':username', $_POST['username']);
$stmt->bindParam(':email', $_POST['email']);

// Execute the statement to insert the user input into the database
$stmt->execute();