What are some common pitfalls to avoid when creating selection menus in PHP?

One common pitfall to avoid when creating selection menus in PHP is not properly sanitizing user input, which can lead to security vulnerabilities such as SQL injection attacks. To prevent this, always use prepared statements or sanitize user input before using it in queries.

// Example of using prepared statements to avoid SQL injection
$pdo = new PDO("mysql:host=localhost;dbname=mydatabase", "username", "password");

$stmt = $pdo->prepare("SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = :id");
$stmt->bindParam(':id', $_POST['user_id']);
$stmt->execute();
$results = $stmt->fetchAll();