How can PHP developers handle special characters like '<' or '>' when retrieving strings from a database?

Special characters like '<' or '>' can be handled by using PHP's htmlspecialchars() function when retrieving strings from a database. This function converts special characters like '<' to their HTML entity equivalents, preventing them from being interpreted as HTML tags. By using htmlspecialchars(), PHP developers can ensure that special characters are displayed correctly on a webpage without affecting the HTML structure.

// Retrieve string from database
$string = $row['column_name'];

// Convert special characters to HTML entities
$escaped_string = htmlspecialchars($string);

// Output the escaped string
echo $escaped_string;