What best practices should be followed when sanitizing user inputs in PHP to prevent SQL injection and other security vulnerabilities?

To prevent SQL injection and other security vulnerabilities when sanitizing user inputs in PHP, it is recommended to use prepared statements with parameterized queries. This approach separates the SQL query logic from the user input, preventing malicious input from being executed as SQL commands.

// Establish a database connection
$pdo = new PDO("mysql:host=localhost;dbname=mydatabase", "username", "password");

// Prepare a SQL statement with a placeholder for user input
$stmt = $pdo->prepare("SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = :username");

// Bind the user input to the placeholder
$stmt->bindParam(':username', $_POST['username']);

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

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