What is the significance of using escape characters like "\" in PHP when dealing with special characters?

When dealing with special characters in PHP, using escape characters like "\" is significant because it allows you to include characters that would otherwise have a special meaning in the code. For example, if you want to include a double quote within a string, you would need to escape it with a backslash (\"). This ensures that the character is treated as a literal character rather than a part of the code syntax.

// Example of using escape characters to include special characters in a string
$specialString = "This is a \"special\" string with escaped double quotes.";
echo $specialString;