What best practices should PHP beginners follow when creating forms to prevent errors and ensure proper functionality?

When creating forms in PHP, beginners should follow best practices such as validating user input, sanitizing data to prevent SQL injection attacks, and using proper error handling to ensure the form functions correctly. This can help prevent errors and enhance the overall security of the application.

// Example of validating user input in a form
if ($_SERVER["REQUEST_METHOD"] == "POST") {
    $name = $_POST["name"];
    $email = $_POST["email"];

    // Validate name field
    if (empty($name)) {
        $errors[] = "Name is required";
    }

    // Validate email field
    if (!filter_var($email, FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL)) {
        $errors[] = "Invalid email format";
    }

    // If there are no errors, process the form
    if (empty($errors)) {
        // Process form data
    }
}