What are common pitfalls or gotchas with placeholders and SQL injection prevention?

When working with databases in Perl, it's crucial to prevent SQL injection by properly using placeholders in SQL queries. However, there are several common pitfalls that developers might encounter:

  • Not using placeholders consistently: Mixing raw SQL and placeholders can accidentally expose your application to SQL injection.
  • Incorrectly binding parameters: Ensure that parameters are bound in a way that adheres to the expected data types.
  • Using outdated modules: Some older Perl database modules may not support placeholders effectively, so always ensure you're using the latest versions.
  • Improper escaping: Even when using placeholders, you must ensure that strings are sanitized, especially when they include user input.

Here's an example of using placeholders in a Perl DBI query:

# Perl example with DBI for SQL query with placeholders use DBI; my $dbh = DBI->connect('DBI:mysql:database_name', 'username', 'password'); my $name = 'John Doe'; # User input my $sth = $dbh->prepare('SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = ?'); $sth->execute($name); while (my @row = $sth->fetchrow_array) { print join(", ", @row), "\n"; } $sth->finish; $dbh->disconnect;

SQL injection prevention Perl database handling placeholders in SQL DBI module secure database queries