What are the best practices for handling form submissions in PHP to avoid data loss?

When handling form submissions in PHP, it is important to implement proper validation and error handling to avoid data loss. One way to prevent data loss is to check if the form has been submitted before processing the data. Additionally, you should sanitize and validate user input to prevent malicious code injection.

if ($_SERVER["REQUEST_METHOD"] == "POST") {
    // Validate and sanitize form data
    $name = htmlspecialchars($_POST["name"]);
    $email = filter_var($_POST["email"], FILTER_SANITIZE_EMAIL);
    
    // Process the form data
    // Add code here to handle form submission
}