What best practices should be followed when integrating security image verification in PHP forms to prevent errors like images not being displayed?

When integrating security image verification in PHP forms, it is important to ensure that the image is displayed correctly to the user. To prevent errors like images not being displayed, it is recommended to use absolute paths for the image file location and include error handling to gracefully handle any issues that may arise.

<?php
session_start();

// Generate random code for image verification
$random_code = rand(1000, 9999);
$_SESSION['security_code'] = $random_code;

// Create image with the random code
$image = imagecreate(100, 30);
$background_color = imagecolorallocate($image, 255, 255, 255);
$text_color = imagecolorallocate($image, 0, 0, 0);
imagestring($image, 5, 10, 5, $random_code, $text_color);

// Set the content type header
header('Content-type: image/png');

// Display the image
imagepng($image);

// Free up memory
imagedestroy($image);
?>