What are common issues beginners face when working with PHP, such as displaying unwanted characters or tags in the output?

Common issues beginners face when working with PHP include displaying unwanted characters or tags in the output. This can happen when the PHP code is not properly escaping or sanitizing user input, leading to the display of HTML tags or special characters that were not intended to be shown. To solve this issue, it is important to use functions like htmlspecialchars() or htmlentities() to escape user input before displaying it on the webpage.

<?php
// Example of escaping user input to prevent unwanted characters or tags in the output
$user_input = "<script>alert('Hello');</script>";
echo htmlspecialchars($user_input);
?>