What are the best practices for handling variable passing in PHP scripts?

When passing variables between PHP scripts, it is important to ensure that the data is properly sanitized and validated to prevent security vulnerabilities such as SQL injection or cross-site scripting attacks. One best practice is to use PHP's built-in functions like filter_var() to sanitize input data. Additionally, it is recommended to use POST method for sensitive data to avoid exposing it in the URL.

// Example of passing a variable securely using POST method
if ($_SERVER["REQUEST_METHOD"] == "POST") {
    $username = filter_var($_POST["username"], FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);
    $password = filter_var($_POST["password"], FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);
    
    // Process the data securely
}