What are some recommended methods for sanitizing and validating user input in PHP forms?

When working with PHP forms, it is crucial to sanitize and validate user input to prevent security vulnerabilities such as SQL injection or cross-site scripting attacks. One recommended method is to use PHP's filter_input() function to sanitize input data and filter_var() function to validate input against specific rules such as email or URL formats. 

// Sanitize and validate user input in PHP form
$username = filter_input(INPUT_POST, 'username', FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);
$email = filter_input(INPUT_POST, 'email', FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL);

if (!$username) {
    // Handle invalid username input
}

if (!$email) {
    // Handle invalid email input
}

Keywords

filter_var htmlentities htmlspecialchars validation sanitization

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