What are the best practices for handling file operations in PHP scripts to avoid security vulnerabilities and ensure compatibility with server configurations like SAFE MODE?
When handling file operations in PHP scripts, it is important to sanitize user input to prevent directory traversal attacks and ensure that the script has the necessary permissions to perform file operations. To ensure compatibility with server configurations like SAFE MODE, it is recommended to use functions like `is_readable()`, `is_writable()`, and `realpath()` to check file permissions and paths before performing any operations.
// Example of checking file permissions and paths before performing file operations
$filename = $_GET['filename'];
// Check if the file is readable
if (is_readable($filename)) {
// Perform file operations
$file_contents = file_get_contents($filename);
echo $file_contents;
} else {
echo "File is not readable.";
}