What is the purpose of the PHP script discussed in the thread?

The purpose of the PHP script discussed in the thread is to sanitize user input to prevent SQL injection attacks. This is important for security reasons as it helps protect the database from malicious queries that could potentially compromise its integrity.

// Sanitize user input to prevent SQL injection
function sanitize_input($input) {
    $input = trim($input);
    $input = stripslashes($input);
    $input = htmlspecialchars($input);
    return $input;
}

// Example usage
$user_input = $_POST['user_input'];
$sanitized_input = sanitize_input($user_input);