What best practices should be followed when handling form data in PHP to avoid syntax errors and unexpected output?

When handling form data in PHP, it is important to sanitize and validate the input to prevent syntax errors and unexpected output. To achieve this, you can use functions like htmlspecialchars() to prevent malicious code injection and trim() to remove leading and trailing whitespaces. Additionally, always use prepared statements when interacting with databases to prevent SQL injection attacks. 

// Sanitize and validate form data
$name = isset($_POST['name']) ? htmlspecialchars(trim($_POST['name'])) : '';
$email = isset($_POST['email']) ? htmlspecialchars(trim($_POST['email'])) : '';
$message = isset($_POST['message']) ? htmlspecialchars(trim($_POST['message'])) : '';

// Use prepared statements to interact with the database
$stmt = $pdo->prepare("INSERT INTO messages (name, email, message) VALUES (:name, :email, :message)");
$stmt->bindParam(':name', $name);
$stmt->bindParam(':email', $email);
$stmt->bindParam(':message', $message);
$stmt->execute();

Keywords

Validation Sanitization htmlspecialchars filter_var error_reporting

Related Questions