How can the PHP header function be utilized to set the character encoding for HTML pages to prevent issues with special characters during data processing?

Special characters in HTML pages can cause issues during data processing if the character encoding is not properly set. To prevent this, the PHP header function can be utilized to set the character encoding to UTF-8, which supports a wide range of characters. This ensures that special characters are displayed correctly and processed accurately.

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