How can setting the encoding for database connections, PHP files, and HTTP headers to UTF-8 help resolve character encoding issues in PHP?

Setting the encoding for database connections, PHP files, and HTTP headers to UTF-8 can help resolve character encoding issues in PHP by ensuring that all data is consistently handled in UTF-8 format. This helps prevent data corruption or display issues when dealing with multilingual content or special characters.

// Set UTF-8 encoding for database connection
$pdo = new PDO('mysql:host=localhost;dbname=my_database;charset=utf8', 'username', 'password');

// Set UTF-8 encoding for PHP files
header('Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8');
mb_internal_encoding('UTF-8');

// Set UTF-8 encoding for HTTP headers
header('Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8');