What best practices should be followed when handling user input, such as sanitizing and validating data before executing SQL queries?

When handling user input, it is crucial to sanitize and validate the data before executing SQL queries to prevent SQL injection attacks. Sanitizing involves removing any potentially harmful characters or escaping special characters, while validation ensures that the input meets the expected format or criteria. By following these best practices, you can protect your database from malicious attacks and ensure the integrity of your data. 

// Sanitize and validate user input before executing SQL query
$user_input = $_POST['user_input'];

// Sanitize input to prevent SQL injection
$sanitized_input = mysqli_real_escape_string($connection, $user_input);

// Validate input to ensure it meets criteria
if (/* validation criteria */) {
    // Execute SQL query with sanitized input
    $query = "SELECT * FROM table WHERE column = '$sanitized_input'";
    $result = mysqli_query($connection, $query);
} else {
    // Handle invalid input
    echo "Invalid input";
}

Keywords

SQL injection data validation prepared statements filter_input htmlspecialchars

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