How can UTF-8 and utf8mb4 be utilized to handle special characters in PHP applications?

When dealing with special characters in PHP applications, it is important to use the UTF-8 character encoding to properly handle a wide range of characters. In MySQL databases, the utf8mb4 character set should be used instead of utf8 to support emojis and other special characters. By setting the character encoding to UTF-8 and using utf8mb4 in MySQL, you can ensure that special characters are stored and displayed correctly in your PHP application. 

// Set UTF-8 encoding in PHP
header('Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8');

// Set UTF-8 encoding in MySQL connection
$mysqli = new mysqli("localhost", "username", "password", "database");
$mysqli->set_charset("utf8mb4");

Keywords

UTF-8 utf8mb4 special characters PHP applications handling

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