What are the consequences of not properly handling error messages or feedback in PHP scripts, as seen in the provided code snippet?

Improper handling of error messages or feedback in PHP scripts can lead to security vulnerabilities such as information disclosure or injection attacks. To solve this issue, it is important to sanitize user input, validate data, and properly handle errors by displaying generic error messages to users without revealing sensitive information. 

// Incorrect way of handling error messages
$user_input = $_POST['user_input'];

// This can lead to SQL injection vulnerability
$query = "SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = '$user_input'";
$result = mysqli_query($connection, $query);

// Proper way of handling error messages
$user_input = mysqli_real_escape_string($connection, $_POST['user_input']);

$query = "SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = '$user_input'";
$result = mysqli_query($connection, $query);

if ($result) {
    // Process the result
} else {
    // Display a generic error message to the user
    echo "An error occurred. Please try again.";
}

Keywords

error handling feedback PHP scripts code snippet consequences

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