What potential issue can arise when using htmlentities to sanitize user input before inserting into a database?

When using htmlentities to sanitize user input before inserting into a database, one potential issue that can arise is that it may encode characters that are not suitable for database storage, leading to data corruption or incorrect display. To solve this issue, it is recommended to use prepared statements with parameterized queries to safely insert user input into the database without the risk of SQL injection attacks. 

// Establish a database connection
$pdo = new PDO("mysql:host=localhost;dbname=mydatabase", "username", "password");

// Prepare a SQL statement with a parameterized query
$stmt = $pdo->prepare("INSERT INTO users (username, email) VALUES (:username, :email)");

// Bind the user input to the parameters
$stmt->bindParam(':username', $username);
$stmt->bindParam(':email', $email);

// Sanitize user input (if needed)
$username = htmlentities($_POST['username']);
$email = htmlentities($_POST['email']);

// Execute the prepared statement
$stmt->execute();

Keywords

htmlentities user input database injection security

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