How can the presence of whitespace or characters before PHP tags lead to header modification issues in PHP scripts?

The presence of whitespace or characters before PHP tags can lead to header modification issues in PHP scripts because any output sent to the browser before the headers are set will cause an error. To solve this issue, ensure that there is no whitespace or characters before the opening <?php tag in your PHP scripts.

&lt;?php
ob_start(); // Start output buffering
// Your PHP code here
ob_end_flush(); // Flush the output buffer