What best practices should be followed when processing form data in PHP to handle different input scenarios?

When processing form data in PHP, it is important to validate and sanitize the input to prevent security vulnerabilities such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting attacks. Use PHP functions like filter_input() or htmlentities() to sanitize user input and validate it using functions like filter_var(). Additionally, consider using prepared statements when interacting with a database to prevent SQL injection. 

// Example of processing form data in PHP

// Sanitize and validate input data
$username = filter_input(INPUT_POST, 'username', FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);
$email = filter_input(INPUT_POST, 'email', FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL);

// Check if input is valid
if ($username && $email) {
    // Process the data
    // Insert data into database using prepared statements
} else {
    // Handle invalid input
    echo "Invalid input data";
}

Keywords

sanitize validation filter_input htmlspecialchars error_reporting

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