What are the best practices for ensuring proper character encoding in PHP scripts to avoid issues with special characters?

Improper character encoding in PHP scripts can lead to issues with special characters, such as displaying them incorrectly or causing errors. To ensure proper character encoding, it is recommended to set the encoding to UTF-8 in your PHP scripts using the header() function. This will help in handling special characters correctly.

<?php
header('Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8');
?>