What are the implications of mixing different character encodings in PHP scripts, and how can this be avoided?

Mixing different character encodings in PHP scripts can lead to encoding issues, resulting in garbled text or errors when displaying or manipulating strings. To avoid this problem, it's essential to ensure that all strings are in the same encoding format throughout the script. One way to achieve this is by setting the default encoding using the `mb_internal_encoding()` function at the beginning of your script.

// Set the default encoding to UTF-8
mb_internal_encoding('UTF-8');

// Your PHP script code here