What are the best practices for handling dynamic search functionality in PHP applications that interact with MySQL databases?

When implementing dynamic search functionality in PHP applications that interact with MySQL databases, it is important to sanitize user input to prevent SQL injection attacks. Additionally, using prepared statements can help improve performance and security by separating SQL logic from user input. Lastly, consider implementing pagination to handle large result sets efficiently. 

// Sanitize user input
$searchTerm = mysqli_real_escape_string($conn, $_GET['search']);

// Prepare SQL statement
$stmt = $conn->prepare("SELECT * FROM table WHERE column LIKE ?");
$searchTerm = "%$searchTerm%";
$stmt->bind_param("s", $searchTerm);

// Execute the statement
$stmt->execute();

// Fetch results
$result = $stmt->get_result();
while ($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
    // Output search results
}

// Close statement and connection
$stmt->close();
$conn->close();

Keywords

PHP MySQL dynamic search SQL injection prepared statements

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