What are some potential issues with using the htmlspecialchars() function before inserting data into a database in PHP?

One potential issue with using the htmlspecialchars() function before inserting data into a database in PHP is that it can lead to double encoding. This means that the data is encoded twice, which can cause display issues when retrieving and displaying the data later. To solve this issue, you can use the htmlspecialchars() function when displaying the data instead of when inserting it into the database.

// Insert data into the database without using htmlspecialchars()
$data = $_POST['data'];
$sql = "INSERT INTO table_name (column_name) VALUES ('$data')";
// Execute the SQL query

// Retrieve and display the data using htmlspecialchars()
$sql = "SELECT column_name FROM table_name";
$result = mysqli_query($conn, $sql);
while($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)) {
    echo htmlspecialchars($row['column_name']);
}