What best practices should PHP developers follow when handling user input from $_GET variables in their scripts?

When handling user input from $_GET variables in PHP scripts, developers should always validate and sanitize the input to prevent security vulnerabilities such as SQL injection or cross-site scripting attacks. One common best practice is to use filter_input() function to sanitize input data. Additionally, developers should never trust user input and should always validate and sanitize it before using it in their scripts. 

$input = filter_input(INPUT_GET, 'user_input', FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);
if ($input === false) {
    // Handle invalid input
} else {
    // Use sanitized input
}

Keywords

filter_input htmlspecialchars validation sanitization security

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