How can HTML entities be used in PHP to avoid issues with special characters in form inputs?

Special characters in form inputs can cause issues when submitting data to a PHP script, as they can interfere with the code execution or display incorrectly. To avoid this problem, HTML entities can be used to encode special characters before processing the input data in PHP. This ensures that the data is safely handled and displayed without any unexpected behavior.

$input = $_POST['input_field']; // Get the input data from the form
$encoded_input = htmlspecialchars($input, ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8'); // Encode special characters using HTML entities
// Use $encoded_input in your PHP script to safely handle the input data