How can PHP developers ensure proper encoding and decoding of text, especially when dealing with special characters like Umlauts?

To ensure proper encoding and decoding of text, especially when dealing with special characters like Umlauts, PHP developers can use functions like `mb_convert_encoding()` and `utf8_encode()` for encoding and `utf8_decode()` for decoding. It is important to always specify the correct character encoding, such as UTF-8, when working with text containing special characters. 

// Encoding text with special characters like Umlauts
$text = "Möchten Sie einen Kaffee?";
$encoded_text = mb_convert_encoding($text, 'UTF-8');

// Decoding text with special characters like Umlauts
$decoded_text = utf8_decode($encoded_text);

echo $encoded_text; // Output: Möchten Sie einen Kaffee?
echo $decoded_text; // Output: Möchten Sie einen Kaffee?

Keywords

PHP encoding decoding text special characters Umlauts

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