What are the best practices for handling form data in PHP, specifically in relation to GET and POST methods?

When handling form data in PHP, it is important to properly sanitize and validate the input to prevent security vulnerabilities such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting attacks. For GET requests, use $_GET to access the form data, and for POST requests, use $_POST. Always use functions like htmlspecialchars() and mysqli_real_escape_string() to sanitize user input before using it in database queries. 

// Example of handling form data in PHP using POST method
if ($_SERVER["REQUEST_METHOD"] == "POST") {
    $username = htmlspecialchars($_POST['username']);
    $password = htmlspecialchars($_POST['password']);
    
    // Validate and sanitize input further if needed
    
    // Example of using mysqli_real_escape_string to prevent SQL injection
    $username = mysqli_real_escape_string($conn, $username);
    $password = mysqli_real_escape_string($conn, $password);
    
    // Proceed with database operations
}

Keywords

form data PHP GET method POST method handling

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