Can PHP be used to format text within a textarea element?

Yes, PHP can be used to format text within a textarea element by using the htmlspecialchars function to escape special characters and prevent XSS attacks. This function converts special characters like <, >, ", ', and & into their HTML entities, allowing the text to be safely displayed within the textarea element without affecting the HTML structure. 

&lt;textarea&gt;&lt;?php echo htmlspecialchars($text); ?&gt;&lt;/textarea&gt;

Keywords

PHP text formatting textarea element HTML string manipulation

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