What are some best practices for handling and storing HTML code in a database using PHP to avoid syntax errors and data loss?

When storing HTML code in a database using PHP, it is important to properly escape the HTML content to prevent syntax errors and data loss. One way to achieve this is by using the htmlspecialchars function to encode special characters in the HTML code before storing it in the database. This will ensure that the HTML code is safely stored and can be retrieved without any issues.

// Assuming $htmlContent contains the HTML code to be stored in the database
$escapedHtmlContent = htmlspecialchars($htmlContent);

// Insert the escaped HTML content into the database
$query = "INSERT INTO table_name (html_content) VALUES ('$escapedHtmlContent')";
// Execute the query