Are there any specific PHP functions or methods that can help prevent issues with variable substitution in email content?

When including variables in email content, it's important to properly sanitize and escape the values to prevent potential security vulnerabilities like injection attacks. One way to achieve this is by using the `htmlspecialchars()` function in PHP to encode special characters in the variable values before inserting them into the email content.

// Example of using htmlspecialchars() to prevent variable substitution issues in email content
$name = "John Doe";
$email = "johndoe@example.com";

// Sanitize and escape the variables before using them in the email content
$escaped_name = htmlspecialchars($name, ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8');
$escaped_email = htmlspecialchars($email, ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8');

// Construct the email content with the sanitized variables
$email_content = "Hello, $escaped_name. Your email address is $escaped_email.";

// Send the email with the sanitized content
// (code for sending email not shown here)