In cases where a third-party script stores data in a non-standard format, what are some strategies for safely manipulating and displaying that data in PHP scripts?

When dealing with data stored in a non-standard format by a third-party script, one strategy is to create a custom function to parse and manipulate the data before displaying it in PHP scripts. This function can handle the conversion of the data into a standard format that can be easily manipulated and displayed.

// Function to parse and manipulate data stored in a non-standard format
function parseNonStandardData($data) {
    // Code to parse and manipulate the data into a standard format
    // Return the standardized data
}

// Example usage
$nonStandardData = "Some data in non-standard format";
$standardData = parseNonStandardData($nonStandardData);
echo $standardData;