What security considerations should be taken into account when using user input in PHP scripts, as shown in the provided code snippet?

When using user input in PHP scripts, it is important to sanitize and validate the input to prevent security vulnerabilities such as SQL injection or cross-site scripting attacks. One way to do this is by using functions like htmlentities() to convert special characters to HTML entities, or prepared statements for database queries. Additionally, always validate and sanitize user input before using it in your code to ensure it is safe. 

// Sanitize and validate user input
$userInput = $_POST['user_input'];
$cleanInput = htmlentities($userInput);

// Use the sanitized input in your code
echo "User input: " . $cleanInput;

Keywords

SQL injection cross-site scripting (XSS) input validation prepared statements htmlspecialchars

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