What are the best practices for handling encoded characters in PHP to prevent data corruption?

When handling encoded characters in PHP, it is important to ensure that the correct character encoding is specified to prevent data corruption. One way to do this is by setting the appropriate encoding when working with strings or files that may contain encoded characters. Additionally, using functions like utf8_encode() and utf8_decode() can help convert strings to and from UTF-8 encoding, which is commonly used for web content.

// Set the encoding to UTF-8
header('Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8');

// Convert a string to UTF-8 encoding
$encodedString = utf8_encode($originalString);

// Convert a UTF-8 encoded string back to its original encoding
$decodedString = utf8_decode($encodedString);