What are some potential pitfalls to avoid when creating a guestbook using PHP?
One potential pitfall to avoid when creating a guestbook using PHP is not properly sanitizing user input, which can leave your application vulnerable to SQL injection attacks. To prevent this, always use prepared statements when interacting with your database to ensure that user input is properly escaped.
// Connect to database
$pdo = new PDO('mysql:host=localhost;dbname=guestbook', 'username', 'password');
// Prepare statement
$stmt = $pdo->prepare("INSERT INTO entries (name, message) VALUES (:name, :message)");
// Bind parameters
$stmt->bindParam(':name', $_POST['name']);
$stmt->bindParam(':message', $_POST['message']);
// Execute statement
$stmt->execute();