What are the best practices for handling form data in PHP and accessing it through $_POST or $_GET?

When handling form data in PHP, it is important to sanitize and validate the data to prevent security vulnerabilities such as SQL injection or cross-site scripting attacks. To access form data submitted through the POST method, you can use the $_POST superglobal array. Similarly, to access form data submitted through the GET method, you can use the $_GET superglobal array.

// Sanitize and validate form data submitted through POST method
if ($_SERVER["REQUEST_METHOD"] == "POST") {
    $username = htmlspecialchars($_POST["username"]);
    $password = htmlspecialchars($_POST["password"]);
    
    // Perform validation and processing of form data
}

// Access form data submitted through GET method
if (isset($_GET["search"])) {
    $searchTerm = htmlspecialchars($_GET["search"]);
    
    // Perform search functionality based on the search term
}