What are the best practices for handling user input in PHP forms to prevent errors and security vulnerabilities?

When handling user input in PHP forms, it is crucial to sanitize and validate the data to prevent errors and security vulnerabilities. Sanitizing the input involves removing any potentially harmful characters or code, while validating ensures that the input meets the expected format and criteria. Using PHP functions like htmlspecialchars() and filter_var() can help sanitize and validate user input effectively. 

// Sanitize user input
$user_input = htmlspecialchars($_POST['user_input']);

// Validate user input
if (filter_var($user_input, FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL)) {
    // Process the input
} else {
    // Display an error message
    echo "Invalid email address";
}

Keywords

validation sanitization htmlspecialchars SQL injection cross-site scripting

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