What are some common rules and guidelines to follow when using PHP in a development environment?

One common rule when using PHP in a development environment is to always sanitize user input to prevent SQL injection attacks. This can be done by using functions like mysqli_real_escape_string or prepared statements to escape special characters. 

$user_input = $_POST['user_input'];
$clean_input = mysqli_real_escape_string($connection, $user_input);
```

Another important guideline is to avoid using deprecated functions or features in PHP to ensure compatibility with newer versions. It's recommended to regularly update your codebase and use the latest PHP version available.

```php
// Avoid using deprecated functions like mysql_connect
// Instead, use mysqli or PDO for database connections
```

Lastly, it's crucial to properly handle errors and exceptions in your PHP code to provide a better user experience and make debugging easier. Use try-catch blocks to catch exceptions and log errors to a file or display them in a user-friendly manner.

```php
try {
    // Your code that may throw an exception
} catch (Exception $e) {
    // Handle the exception, log the error, or display a message to the user
}

Keywords

error handling security measures code optimization PHP frameworks PHP extensions

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