What are the potential pitfalls of using htmlspecialchars() in the <head> section of HTML in PHP?

Potential pitfalls of using htmlspecialchars() in the <head> section of HTML in PHP include encoding characters that are necessary for HTML markup, such as <, >, and &. This can result in rendering issues on the webpage. To solve this issue, it is recommended to use htmlspecialchars() only when echoing dynamic content within the <body> section of HTML, and not within the <head> section. 

&lt;!DOCTYPE html&gt;
&lt;html&gt;
&lt;head&gt;
    &lt;title&gt;&lt;?php echo htmlspecialchars($pageTitle); ?&gt;&lt;/title&gt;
&lt;/head&gt;
&lt;body&gt;
    &lt;h1&gt;&lt;?php echo htmlspecialchars($heading); ?&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;
    &lt;p&gt;&lt;?php echo htmlspecialchars($content); ?&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/body&gt;
&lt;/html&gt;

Keywords

htmlspecialchars HTML PHP security XSS

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