What are some common pitfalls to avoid when passing values from HTML to PHP?

One common pitfall to avoid when passing values from HTML to PHP is not properly sanitizing user input, which can leave your application vulnerable to security risks such as SQL injection attacks. To solve this, always use PHP functions like htmlspecialchars() or mysqli_real_escape_string() to sanitize user input before using it in your PHP code. Example PHP code snippet:

// Using htmlspecialchars() to sanitize user input
$username = htmlspecialchars($_POST['username']);

// Using mysqli_real_escape_string() to sanitize user input
$conn = mysqli_connect("localhost", "username", "password", "database");
$username = mysqli_real_escape_string($conn, $_POST['username']);