What are some best practices for handling special characters in URLs when working with PHP?

Special characters in URLs can cause issues with PHP, as they can be misinterpreted or cause errors. To handle special characters in URLs, it is recommended to use the urlencode() function to encode the special characters before using them in the URL. This function will convert special characters into a format that can be safely used in a URL.

$url = "https://example.com/page.php?name=" . urlencode($name);
header("Location: $url");
exit();