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

When handling form submissions in PHP, it is important to prevent data loss by validating the input data and handling errors gracefully. One way to achieve this is by using server-side validation to check for required fields, data formats, and any other validation rules before processing the form data.

<?php
// Check if the form was submitted
if ($_SERVER["REQUEST_METHOD"] == "POST") {
    // Validate form data
    $name = $_POST["name"];
    $email = $_POST["email"];
    
    if (empty($name) || empty($email)) {
        echo "Please fill out all required fields";
    } else {
        // Process the form data
        // Insert data into database, send email, etc.
    }
}
?>