What measures can PHP developers take to ensure the security of their code and prevent vulnerabilities?

To ensure the security of PHP code and prevent vulnerabilities, developers can implement input validation to sanitize user input, use parameterized queries to prevent SQL injection attacks, and regularly update PHP versions and libraries to patch security vulnerabilities.

// Example of input validation to sanitize user input
$user_input = $_POST['user_input'];
$clean_input = filter_var($user_input, FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);

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

// Example of updating PHP versions and libraries
// Check for updates and security patches regularly