What are some common pitfalls when using PHP for form processing and data display?

Common pitfalls when using PHP for form processing and data display include not properly sanitizing user input, failing to validate form data, and not handling errors effectively. To solve these issues, always sanitize user input to prevent SQL injection and cross-site scripting attacks, validate form data to ensure it meets expected criteria, and handle errors gracefully to provide a better user experience. 

// Sanitize user input using the filter_var function
$username = filter_var($_POST['username'], FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);

// Validate form data using if statements
if (empty($username)) {
    echo "Username is required";
} else {
    // Process the form data
}

// Handle errors by displaying a user-friendly message
try {
    // Code that may throw an exception
} catch (Exception $e) {
    echo "An error occurred: " . $e->getMessage();
}

Keywords

SQL injection XSS attacks form validation data sanitization error handling

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