What precautions should be taken to prevent unwanted outputs before the PHP session_start() function in a script?

To prevent unwanted outputs before the PHP session_start() function in a script, it is important to ensure that there is no whitespace, HTML tags, or any other output sent to the browser before calling session_start(). This is because session_start() sends headers to the browser and any output before it will cause an error. One way to prevent unwanted outputs is to place the session_start() function at the very beginning of the script, before any other code or HTML. This ensures that no output is sent before starting the session.

<?php
session_start();

// rest of your PHP code goes here
?>