What role does the UTF-8 BOM play in causing display problems with included PHP files and how can it be removed?

The UTF-8 BOM (Byte Order Mark) can cause display problems with included PHP files because it adds extra characters at the beginning of the file, which can interfere with the PHP processing. To remove the UTF-8 BOM, you can open the PHP file in a text editor that supports encoding changes and save it without the BOM. 

// Remove UTF-8 BOM from included PHP files
function remove_utf8_bom($text) {
    $bom = pack('H*','EFBBBF');
    if (substr($text, 0, 3) === $bom) {
        $text = substr($text, 3);
    }
    return $text;
}

// Include PHP file with UTF-8 BOM removed
$included_file = 'included_file.php';
$included_content = file_get_contents($included_file);
$included_content = remove_utf8_bom($included_content);
eval('?>' . $included_content);

Keywords

UTF-8 BOM display problems included PHP files removal encoding.

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