What best practices should be followed when handling data retrieval from socket connections in PHP?

When handling data retrieval from socket connections in PHP, it is important to properly handle errors, close the socket connection after data retrieval is complete, and sanitize input data to prevent security vulnerabilities.

// Establish a socket connection
$socket = socket_create(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, SOL_TCP);
if ($socket === false) {
    echo "Error creating socket: " . socket_strerror(socket_last_error());
}

// Connect to the socket
$result = socket_connect($socket, '127.0.0.1', 8080);
if ($result === false) {
    echo "Error connecting to socket: " . socket_strerror(socket_last_error($socket));
}

// Receive data from the socket
$data = socket_read($socket, 1024);
if ($data === false) {
    echo "Error reading data from socket: " . socket_strerror(socket_last_error($socket));
} else {
    echo "Data received: " . $data;
}

// Close the socket connection
socket_close($socket);