How can the character encoding of the browser affect the display and manipulation of special characters in PHP?

The character encoding of the browser can affect the display and manipulation of special characters in PHP if it doesn't match the encoding specified in the PHP script. To solve this issue, you can set the character encoding in the PHP script using the header() function with the Content-Type header set to the appropriate charset.

<?php
header('Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8');
?>