What are the best practices for handling form data in PHP to ensure all submitted information is correctly processed and included in the email?

When handling form data in PHP, it is important to properly sanitize and validate the input to prevent any security vulnerabilities or errors in processing the data. One way to ensure all submitted information is correctly processed and included in the email is to use PHP's filter_input function to retrieve and sanitize the form data before sending it in an email.

// Retrieve form data and sanitize
$name = filter_input(INPUT_POST, 'name', FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);
$email = filter_input(INPUT_POST, 'email', FILTER_SANITIZE_EMAIL);
$message = filter_input(INPUT_POST, 'message', FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);

// Validate email address
if (!filter_var($email, FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL)) {
    echo "Invalid email format";
    exit;
}

// Construct email message
$to = "recipient@example.com";
$subject = "New form submission";
$body = "Name: $name\nEmail: $email\nMessage: $message";

// Send email
mail($to, $subject, $body);

echo "Email sent successfully";