What role does the browser's DOM inspection tool play in verifying the output of htmlspecialchars() and how can developers ensure accurate testing of their PHP code?

When using the htmlspecialchars() function in PHP to prevent XSS attacks, developers can verify the output by using the browser's DOM inspection tool to ensure that special characters are properly encoded. By inspecting the rendered HTML, developers can see if the characters have been converted to their HTML entities, thus protecting against malicious scripts being executed on the webpage. 

<?php
$input = "<script>alert('XSS attack!')</script>";
$encoded_input = htmlspecialchars($input, ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8');
echo $encoded_input;
?>

Keywords

browser DOM inspection htmlspecialchars PHP code testing accurate verification developer tools

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