What are the common pitfalls when using PHP for form processing and session management in multi-page applications?

One common pitfall when using PHP for form processing and session management in multi-page applications is not properly sanitizing user input, which can lead to security vulnerabilities such as SQL injection or cross-site scripting attacks. To mitigate this risk, always use functions like `htmlspecialchars()` and `mysqli_real_escape_string()` to sanitize user input before using it in database queries or displaying it on the page. 

// Example of sanitizing user input before using it in a query
$user_input = $_POST['user_input'];
$clean_input = mysqli_real_escape_string($connection, $user_input);
$query = "SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = '$clean_input'";
$result = mysqli_query($connection, $query);

Keywords

form processing session management multi-page applications security vulnerabilities error handling

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