How can special characters or HTML tags in the data file affect the functionality of array_reverse() in PHP?

Special characters or HTML tags in the data file can affect the functionality of array_reverse() in PHP by potentially causing unexpected behavior or errors due to incorrect data parsing. To solve this issue, it is important to sanitize the input data before passing it to the array_reverse() function. This can be done by using functions like htmlspecialchars() or htmlentities() to escape special characters and HTML tags.

$data = file_get_contents('data.txt');
$clean_data = htmlspecialchars($data);
$array = explode(',', $clean_data);
$reversed_array = array_reverse($array);
print_r($reversed_array);