How can character encoding and special characters impact the functionality of PHP code when parsing data?

Character encoding and special characters can impact the functionality of PHP code when parsing data by causing unexpected behavior such as garbled text, errors in string manipulation functions, or security vulnerabilities like SQL injection attacks. To mitigate these issues, it's important to ensure that the correct character encoding is used throughout the application and to properly sanitize and validate input data to prevent special characters from being interpreted as code. 

// Ensure proper character encoding
header('Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8');

// Sanitize input data
$userInput = filter_input(INPUT_POST, 'user_input', FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);

// Use prepared statements to prevent SQL injection
$stmt = $pdo->prepare('SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = :username');
$stmt->execute(['username' => $userInput]);

Keywords

Character encoding special characters PHP code parsing data functionality

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