What are some common pitfalls when using PHP to interact with MySQL databases?

One common pitfall when using PHP to interact with MySQL databases is not properly sanitizing user input, which can lead to SQL injection attacks. To prevent this, always use prepared statements with parameterized queries to securely pass user input to the database.

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

// Prepare a statement with a parameterized query
$stmt = $pdo->prepare('SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = :username');

// Bind the parameter value
$stmt->bindParam(':username', $_POST['username']);

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

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