How can the use of htmlentities and specifying character encoding before import impact the handling of special characters in PHP-generated CSV files?

When special characters are not properly handled in PHP-generated CSV files, it can lead to issues with data integrity and display. One way to address this is by using htmlentities to encode special characters and specifying the character encoding before importing the CSV file. This ensures that special characters are correctly interpreted and displayed in the CSV file. 

// Specify character encoding
header('Content-Type: text/csv; charset=utf-8');

// Encode special characters using htmlentities
$encoded_data = array_map(function($row){
    return array_map('htmlentities', $row);
}, $data);

// Output CSV file
$output = fopen('php://output', 'w');
foreach ($encoded_data as $row) {
    fputcsv($output, $row);
}
fclose($output);

Keywords

htmlentities character encoding special characters PHP CSV files

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