What potential pitfalls should be considered when using PHP to generate PDFs with LaTEX?

One potential pitfall when using PHP to generate PDFs with LaTEX is the risk of injection attacks if user input is not properly sanitized. To prevent this, always validate and sanitize user input before including it in the LaTEX template. Additionally, ensure that the LaTEX template is secure and does not contain any vulnerabilities that could be exploited.

// Validate and sanitize user input
$user_input = $_POST['user_input'];
$clean_input = htmlspecialchars($user_input);

// LaTEX template with sanitized user input
$latex_template = "\\documentclass{article}
\\begin{document}
User Input: {$clean_input}
\\end{document}";

// Generate PDF using LaTEX template
$pdf = shell_exec("pdflatex -interaction=nonstopmode latex_template.tex");