How do I prevent SQL injection in PHP?

To prevent SQL injection in PHP, it's essential to use prepared statements and parameterized queries. This approach ensures that user input is treated as data and not executable code, thus safeguarding your database from malicious attacks.

Here's a simple example demonstrating how to use prepared statements with PDO (PHP Data Objects):

<?php // Database connection $dsn = 'mysql:host=localhost;dbname=testdb'; $username = 'root'; $password = ''; try { $pdo = new PDO($dsn, $username, $password); $pdo->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE, PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION); // Prepare an SQL statement $stmt = $pdo->prepare('SELECT * FROM users WHERE email = :email'); // Bind the parameters $stmt->bindParam(':email', $user_email); // User input $user_email = 'test@example.com'; // Execute the statement $stmt->execute(); // Fetch the results $results = $stmt->fetchAll(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC); print_r($results); } catch (PDOException $e) { echo 'Connection failed: ' . $e->getMessage(); } ?>

SQL Injection PHP Security Prepared Statements PDO Parameterized Queries