What are the common pitfalls to avoid when using PHP scripts for website functionality?

One common pitfall to avoid when using PHP scripts for website functionality is not properly sanitizing user input, which can leave your website vulnerable to security threats such as SQL injection attacks. To solve this issue, always use prepared statements or parameterized queries when interacting with a database to prevent malicious code from being executed.

// Example of using prepared statements to sanitize user input when interacting with a database
$stmt = $pdo->prepare('SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = :username');
$stmt->execute(['username' => $_POST['username']]);
$results = $stmt->fetchAll();