What are the potential pitfalls of using htmlentities instead of mysql_real_escape_string in PHP when dealing with database inputs?

Using htmlentities instead of mysql_real_escape_string when dealing with database inputs can lead to security vulnerabilities such as SQL injection attacks. htmlentities only encodes special characters for HTML output, not for SQL queries. To properly sanitize user inputs before inserting them into a database, it is recommended to use parameterized queries or prepared statements with PDO or mysqli. 

// Using prepared statements with PDO to safely insert user input into a database
$pdo = new PDO("mysql:host=localhost;dbname=mydatabase", "username", "password");

$stmt = $pdo->prepare("INSERT INTO users (username, email) VALUES (:username, :email)");
$stmt->bindParam(':username', $_POST['username']);
$stmt->bindParam(':email', $_POST['email']);
$stmt->execute();

Keywords

htmlentities mysql_real_escape_string database inputs security vulnerability SQL injection

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