How can the order of applying nl2br and htmlentities affect the output and security of PHP scripts handling user input?

The order of applying nl2br and htmlentities can affect the output and security of PHP scripts handling user input because nl2br converts newlines to <br> tags, which can interfere with the encoding done by htmlentities. To ensure proper output and security, it is recommended to first apply htmlentities to encode special characters, and then nl2br to convert newlines. 

// Fix for applying htmlentities before nl2br
$userInput = $_POST[&#039;user_input&#039;];
$encodedInput = htmlentities($userInput);
$lineBreaksEncoded = nl2br($encodedInput);

echo $lineBreaksEncoded;

Keywords

nl2br htmlentities output security user input

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