What are the consequences of starting a session multiple times within PHP scripts and how can this be avoided?

Starting a session multiple times within PHP scripts can lead to conflicts and unexpected behavior, such as session data being overwritten or lost. To avoid this issue, you can check if a session has already been started before starting a new one using the session_status() function.

if (session_status() == PHP_SESSION_NONE) {
    session_start();
}