Are there any specific functions or libraries in PHP that are recommended for dealing with special characters in HTML?

Special characters in HTML, such as <, >, and & can cause rendering issues or security vulnerabilities if not properly handled. To ensure these characters are displayed correctly and safely in HTML, it is recommended to use the htmlspecialchars() function in PHP. This function converts special characters to their HTML entities, preventing them from being interpreted as code.

// Example of using htmlspecialchars() to handle special characters in HTML
$text = &quot;&lt;h1&gt;Hello, &amp; welcome!&lt;/h1&gt;&quot;;
echo htmlspecialchars($text);