What are the best practices for handling form data in PHP when using the $_POST array?

When handling form data in PHP using the $_POST array, it is important to sanitize and validate the input to prevent security vulnerabilities such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting attacks. One common practice is to use functions like filter_var() or htmlspecialchars() to clean the data before processing it. Additionally, always validate the input against expected data types and formats to ensure the data is safe to use in your application. 

// Sanitize and validate form data before processing
$name = isset($_POST['name']) ? htmlspecialchars($_POST['name']) : '';
$email = isset($_POST['email']) ? filter_var($_POST['email'], FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL) : '';
$age = isset($_POST['age']) ? filter_var($_POST['age'], FILTER_VALIDATE_INT) : 0;

// Process the sanitized and validated data
// Your code to handle the form data goes here

Keywords

$_POST array form data validation security sanitization

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