What are some common pitfalls when using PHP and MySQL together in a web development project?

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

// Example of using prepared statements to prevent SQL injection
$stmt = $pdo->prepare("SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = :username");
$stmt->bindParam(':username', $username);
$stmt->execute();
$results = $stmt->fetchAll();