What are some common pitfalls when handling POST variables in PHP?

One common pitfall when handling POST variables in PHP is not properly sanitizing user input, which can lead to security vulnerabilities such as SQL injection or cross-site scripting attacks. To solve this issue, always use functions like htmlspecialchars() or mysqli_real_escape_string() to sanitize user input before using it in your code. 

// Example of sanitizing user input from a POST variable
$username = isset($_POST['username']) ? htmlspecialchars($_POST['username']) : '';
$password = isset($_POST['password']) ? htmlspecialchars($_POST['password']) : '';

Keywords

POST variables PHP security vulnerabilities data validation injection attacks

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