Difference between htmlentities() and htmlspecialchars() function
| Difference | htmlentities() |
htmlspecialchars() |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Converts all applicable characters to HTML entities. | Converts special characters to HTML entities. |
| Character Encoding | Handles a broader set of characters and supports various character encodings, as it takes an optional encoding parameter. |
Primarily designed for ISO-8859-1 encoding but can work with other encodings if specified. |
| Ampersand Handling | Optionally encodes ampersands (&) even when not part of an entity. |
Does not encode ampersands (&) unless they are part of a special character sequence (e.g., <, >). |
| Quote Handling | Optionally encodes both single and double quotes. | Optionally encodes double quotes (") only. |
| Use Case | Use when dealing with a broader range of characters and when specific character encoding needs are present. | Generally used when working with HTML in a Latin1 (ISO-8859-1) context and when only certain characters need encoding. |
htmlentities() vs htmlspecialchars() Function in PHP
The htmlentities( ) and htmlspecialchars( ) in PHP both convert special characters to their HTML entities, but ‘htmlspecialchars()’ only converts characters that have special meaning in HTML, while ‘htmlentities( )’ converts a broader range of characters. In this article, we will see what htmlentities( ) & htmlspecialchars( ) Function is used for & also understand their implementation through the examples.
Table of Content
- htmlentities() Function
- htmlspecialchars() Function