What common pitfalls do PHP beginners often encounter when writing scripts?

One common pitfall for PHP beginners is not properly escaping user input, leaving their scripts vulnerable to SQL injection attacks. To solve this issue, always use prepared statements or parameterized queries when interacting with a database to prevent malicious input from being executed as SQL commands.

// Example of using prepared statements to prevent SQL injection
$stmt = $pdo->prepare('SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = :username');
$stmt->bindParam(':username', $username);
$stmt->execute();