What potential pitfalls should beginners be aware of when creating databases in PHP?

Beginners should be aware of SQL injection attacks when creating databases in PHP. This vulnerability occurs when user input is not properly sanitized before being used in SQL queries, allowing malicious users to manipulate the database. To prevent SQL injection, beginners should use prepared statements or parameterized queries to securely interact with the database. 

// Using prepared statements to prevent SQL injection

// Connect to the database
$pdo = new PDO('mysql:host=localhost;dbname=mydatabase', 'username', 'password');

// Prepare a SQL statement
$stmt = $pdo->prepare('SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = :username');

// Bind parameters
$stmt->bindParam(':username', $_POST['username']);

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

// Fetch the results
$results = $stmt->fetchAll();

Keywords

SQL injection PDO prepared statements data validation error handling

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