What are some common pitfalls when implementing a basic chat functionality in PHP?

One common pitfall when implementing basic chat functionality in PHP is not properly sanitizing user input, leaving the application vulnerable to cross-site scripting attacks. To solve this issue, always use functions like htmlspecialchars() to escape user input before displaying it.

// Sanitize user input before displaying it
$message = htmlspecialchars($_POST['message']);
echo $message;