How can PHP developers ensure that special characters are displayed correctly on a website while also being stored accurately in a database?

Special characters can be displayed correctly on a website and stored accurately in a database by ensuring that the correct character encoding is used throughout the process. PHP developers can set the character encoding for their website using the header() function and ensure that the database connection is also using the correct character set. Additionally, when inserting data into the database, developers should use prepared statements or escape the special characters to prevent SQL injection attacks.

// Set the character encoding for the website
header('Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8');

// Set the character encoding for the database connection
$pdo = new PDO('mysql:host=localhost;dbname=mydatabase', 'username', 'password', array(PDO::MYSQL_ATTR_INIT_COMMAND => "SET NAMES utf8"));

// Insert data into the database using prepared statements
$stmt = $pdo->prepare("INSERT INTO mytable (column1, column2) VALUES (:value1, :value2)");
$stmt->bindParam(':value1', $value1);
$stmt->bindParam(':value2', $value2);
$stmt->execute();