What does it mean to escape data in PHP and why is it essential for security?

Escaping data in PHP means sanitizing input data to prevent malicious code from being executed. This is essential for security as it helps protect against SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and other security vulnerabilities. 

$input = "<script>alert('Hello!');</script>";
$escaped_input = htmlspecialchars($input, ENT_QUOTES);
echo $escaped_input; // Output: <script>alert('Hello!');</script>

Keywords

data escaping PHP security SQL injection htmlspecialchars XSS protection

Related Questions