What are some common pitfalls to avoid when using PHP to handle form submissions and database interactions?

One common pitfall is not properly sanitizing user input before using it in database queries, which can lead to SQL injection attacks. To avoid this, always use prepared statements with parameterized queries to securely interact with the database. 

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

// Prepare a SQL statement with a placeholder for user input
$stmt = $pdo->prepare('SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = :username');

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

// Execute the query
$stmt->execute();

// Fetch the results
$results = $stmt->fetchAll();

Keywords

SQL injection form validation prepared statements cross-site scripting error handling

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