What best practices should be followed when handling form data in PHP to avoid unintended database entries?

When handling form data in PHP to avoid unintended database entries, it is important to validate and sanitize the input data before inserting it into the database. This can help prevent SQL injection attacks and ensure that only valid data is stored in the database. One way to achieve this is by using prepared statements with parameterized queries to securely insert data into the database. 

// Validate and sanitize form data
$name = filter_var($_POST['name'], FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);
$email = filter_var($_POST['email'], FILTER_SANITIZE_EMAIL);
$message = filter_var($_POST['message'], FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);

// Prepare a SQL statement with parameterized query
$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);

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

Keywords

SQL injection data validation prepared statements htmlspecialchars input filtering

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