What potential pitfalls should be considered when manually inserting data into a table using PHP?

One potential pitfall when manually inserting data into a table using PHP is the risk of SQL injection attacks if user input is not properly sanitized. To prevent this, you should always use prepared statements with parameterized queries to securely insert data into the database.

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

// Prepare a SQL statement with placeholders
$stmt = $pdo->prepare("INSERT INTO mytable (column1, column2) VALUES (:value1, :value2)");

// Bind parameters to the placeholders
$stmt->bindParam(':value1', $value1);
$stmt->bindParam(':value2', $value2);

// Set the values of the parameters
$value1 = 'some value';
$value2 = 'another value';

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