What common syntax errors or pitfalls should be avoided when writing PHP code to interact with a MySQL database?
One common syntax error to avoid when writing PHP code to interact with a MySQL database is not properly escaping or sanitizing user input, which can lead to SQL injection attacks. To prevent this, always use prepared statements or parameterized queries to safely execute SQL queries with user input.
// Example of using prepared statements to interact with a MySQL database in PHP
$pdo = new PDO('mysql:host=localhost;dbname=mydatabase', 'username', 'password');
$stmt = $pdo->prepare("SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = :username");
$stmt->bindParam(':username', $username);
$stmt->execute();
$result = $stmt->fetchAll();