What are the implications of using strtolower() for converting strings to lowercase in PHP, especially when handling special characters like umlauts?

When using strtolower() in PHP to convert strings to lowercase, special characters like umlauts may not be handled correctly. This can result in unexpected behavior or incorrect conversions. To properly handle special characters like umlauts, you can use mb_strtolower() function in PHP, which supports multibyte characters and can correctly convert strings to lowercase while preserving special characters.

$string = "MÖTLEY CRÜE";
$lowercaseString = mb_strtolower($string, 'UTF-8');
echo $lowercaseString; // Output: mötley crüe