What are the potential pitfalls or challenges in implementing a search function using PHP and MySQL?

One potential challenge in implementing a search function using PHP and MySQL is handling user input securely to prevent SQL injection attacks. To solve this issue, you can use prepared statements to sanitize user input before executing the query. 

// Get search query from user input
$search_query = $_GET['query'];

// Prepare the SQL statement with a placeholder for the search query
$stmt = $pdo->prepare("SELECT * FROM table_name WHERE column_name LIKE :search_query");

// Bind the sanitized search query to the placeholder
$stmt->bindParam(':search_query', '%' . $search_query . '%', PDO::PARAM_STR);

// Execute the statement
$stmt->execute();

// Fetch the results
$results = $stmt->fetchAll();

Keywords

MySQL SQL injection full-text search pagination performance optimization

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