What are the potential drawbacks of automatically converting characters like "<" or ">" to XHTML entities when working with HTML code in PHP?

When automatically converting characters like "<" or ">" to XHTML entities in PHP, one potential drawback is that it can lead to unintended consequences such as breaking the structure or functionality of the HTML code. To avoid this issue, it is recommended to only convert the necessary characters that may cause parsing issues, such as "&", "<", and ">". 

// Function to convert only necessary characters to XHTML entities
function convertToXHTMLEntities($html) {
    return str_replace([&#039;&amp;&#039;, &#039;&lt;&#039;, &#039;&gt;&#039;], [&#039;&amp;amp;&#039;, &#039;&amp;lt;&#039;, &#039;&amp;gt;&#039;], $html);
}

// Example usage
$html = &#039;&lt;p&gt;This is a &lt;strong&gt;test&lt;/strong&gt; &amp; example&lt;/p&gt;&#039;;
echo convertToXHTMLEntities($html);

Keywords

XHTML entities characters conversion HTML code potential drawbacks PHP.

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