What are some potential pitfalls of using PHP for building a rating system with user interaction?

One potential pitfall of using PHP for building a rating system with user interaction is the risk of SQL injection attacks if user input is not properly sanitized. To mitigate this risk, always use prepared statements when interacting with a database to prevent malicious SQL queries.

// Using prepared statements to prevent SQL injection
$pdo = new PDO("mysql:host=localhost;dbname=ratingsystem", "username", "password");

$rating = $_POST['rating'];
$user_id = $_POST['user_id'];

$stmt = $pdo->prepare("INSERT INTO ratings (rating, user_id) VALUES (:rating, :user_id)");
$stmt->bindParam(':rating', $rating);
$stmt->bindParam(':user_id', $user_id);
$stmt->execute();