What are the potential pitfalls of storing SQL queries in external files and including them in PHP code?

Storing SQL queries in external files can lead to security vulnerabilities such as SQL injection if the queries are not properly sanitized. To mitigate this risk, it is important to use prepared statements with parameterized queries to prevent malicious input from being executed as SQL commands. This approach helps to ensure that user input is treated as data rather than executable code. 

// Include the external SQL query file
include 'queries.php';

// Prepare a statement with a parameterized query
$stmt = $pdo->prepare($sql);

// Bind parameters and execute the statement
$stmt->bindParam(':username', $username);
$stmt->execute();

Keywords

SQL injection security vulnerability file inclusion database connection code maintenance

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