What steps can be taken to troubleshoot and resolve issues with character encoding in PHP applications?

Character encoding issues in PHP applications can be resolved by ensuring that the proper encoding is set in both the PHP file and the HTML document. Additionally, using functions like mb_convert_encoding() or utf8_encode() can help convert strings to the correct encoding format. It is also important to make sure that the database connection is set to the correct encoding to avoid any conflicts.

// Set the character encoding for PHP file
header('Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8');

// Set the character encoding for HTML document
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">

// Convert string to UTF-8 encoding
$encoded_string = mb_convert_encoding($string, 'UTF-8', 'auto');

// Encode string to UTF-8
$encoded_string = utf8_encode($string);

// Set the database connection to UTF-8 encoding
mysqli_set_charset($connection, 'utf8');