What are the best practices for maintaining consistency in character encoding across PHP files, databases, and server configurations?

To maintain consistency in character encoding across PHP files, databases, and server configurations, it is important to ensure that all components are set to use the same character encoding, such as UTF-8. This can be achieved by setting the character encoding in PHP files, configuring the database to use the same encoding, and ensuring that the server is also set to use UTF-8.

// Set character encoding in PHP files
header('Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8');

// Set character encoding in database connection
$pdo = new PDO('mysql:host=localhost;dbname=mydatabase;charset=utf8', 'username', 'password');

// Set character encoding in server configuration
AddDefaultCharset UTF-8