Are there any common mistakes to avoid when working with string manipulation in PHP?

One common mistake to avoid when working with string manipulation in PHP is not properly escaping special characters. This can lead to syntax errors or unexpected behavior in your code. To solve this issue, you can use functions like addslashes() or htmlspecialchars() to escape special characters before manipulating the string.

// Incorrect way of string manipulation without escaping special characters
$string = "Hello, it's a beautiful day!";
$newString = str_replace("beautiful", "rainy", $string);

// Correct way of string manipulation with escaping special characters
$string = "Hello, it's a beautiful day!";
$escapedString = addslashes($string);
$newString = str_replace("beautiful", "rainy", $escapedString);