What steps can be taken to securely handle and process JSON data in PHP applications?
When handling JSON data in PHP applications, it is important to validate and sanitize the input to prevent malicious attacks such as injection or cross-site scripting. One way to securely handle JSON data is by using the json_decode function with the second parameter set to true, which will return an associative array instead of an object. Additionally, you can use PHP's filter_input function to sanitize the input data.
// Get the JSON data from POST request
$jsonData = file_get_contents('php://input');
// Decode the JSON data into an associative array
$data = json_decode($jsonData, true);
// Sanitize the input data using filter_input
$sanitizedData = filter_var_array($data, FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);
// Process the sanitized data
// ...