How can developers avoid making unnecessary code changes to third-party software like phpBB when facing URL encoding issues with external services?

When facing URL encoding issues with external services in third-party software like phpBB, developers can avoid making unnecessary code changes by using the PHP `urlencode()` function to properly encode URLs before sending them to the external service. This ensures that special characters are encoded correctly and prevents any issues with the external service not recognizing the URL.

$url = 'https://example.com/api?param1=' . urlencode($param1) . '&param2=' . urlencode($param2);
$response = file_get_contents($url);