What best practices should be followed to avoid syntax errors and unexpected behavior in PHP scripts, especially when handling form submissions?

To avoid syntax errors and unexpected behavior in PHP scripts, especially when handling form submissions, it is important to properly sanitize and validate user input. This can be done by using functions like htmlspecialchars() to prevent cross-site scripting attacks and filter_var() to validate input data. Additionally, always use prepared statements when interacting with databases to prevent SQL injection attacks. 

// Sanitize and validate form input
$name = htmlspecialchars($_POST['name']);
$email = filter_var($_POST['email'], FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL);

// Prepare and execute SQL statement using prepared statements
$stmt = $pdo->prepare("INSERT INTO users (name, email) VALUES (:name, :email)");
$stmt->bindParam(':name', $name);
$stmt->bindParam(':email', $email);
$stmt->execute();

Keywords

validation sanitization htmlspecialchars error handling input filtering

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