How can one accurately convert special characters to their corresponding HTML entities in PHP?

When working with special characters in PHP, it is important to convert them to their corresponding HTML entities to ensure proper rendering on web pages. This can be achieved using the htmlentities() function in PHP, which converts special characters to their HTML entities. By using this function, you can accurately convert special characters such as <, >, &, ", and ' to their respective HTML entities.

$string = &quot;This is a string with special characters like &lt;, &gt;, &amp;, &#039;, and \&quot;&quot;;
$converted_string = htmlentities($string);
echo $converted_string;