What best practices should PHP developers follow when handling user input for database operations?

PHP developers should always sanitize and validate user input before using it in database operations to prevent SQL injection attacks and ensure data integrity. They can achieve this by using prepared statements with parameterized queries, input validation functions, and data filtering techniques. Additionally, developers should avoid directly concatenating user input into SQL queries and instead use placeholders to bind parameters securely. 

// Example of using prepared statements with parameterized queries to handle user input securely

// Assuming $conn is the database connection object

// Sanitize and validate user input
$user_input = $_POST['user_input'];
$user_input = filter_var($user_input, FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);

// Prepare the SQL statement with a placeholder
$stmt = $conn->prepare("INSERT INTO table_name (column_name) VALUES (?)");
$stmt->bind_param("s", $user_input);

// Execute the statement
$stmt->execute();

// Close the statement and connection
$stmt->close();
$conn->close();

Keywords

SQL injection prepared statements input validation data sanitization PDO

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