Are there any security considerations to keep in mind when allowing user input in PHP textareas?

When allowing user input in PHP textareas, it is important to sanitize the input to prevent potential security vulnerabilities such as cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks. One way to do this is by using the htmlspecialchars() function to convert special characters into HTML entities before displaying the input.

// Sanitize user input from textarea
$user_input = htmlspecialchars($_POST['textarea_input']);