What are the best practices for handling form submissions and variables in PHP scripts to ensure proper functionality?

When handling form submissions and variables in PHP scripts, it is important to sanitize and validate user input to prevent security vulnerabilities such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting attacks. Additionally, always use proper error handling techniques to gracefully handle any issues that may arise during form processing. 

// Sanitize and validate form input
$name = isset($_POST['name']) ? htmlspecialchars(trim($_POST['name'])) : '';
$email = isset($_POST['email']) ? filter_var(trim($_POST['email']), FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL) : '';

// Check if form was submitted
if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] === 'POST') {
    // Process form submission
    if (!empty($name) && !empty($email)) {
        // Form processing logic here
    } else {
        // Handle form validation errors
        echo 'Please fill out all required fields.';
    }
}

Keywords

form submissions variables PHP scripts proper functionality error handling

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