PHP - String manipulation remove spcial characters and replace spaces

Question

I am getting strings from a database and then using the strings to build a URL. My issue is, some of the strings will have characters like < > & { } * general special characters, but the string may also have strings in. How would I replace the spaces with dashes and totally remove and special characters from the strings?

Answer 1

Keep only alphabets and numbers in a string using preg_replace:

$string = preg_replace('/[^a-zA-Z0-9-]/', '', $string);

You can use str_replace to replace space with -

$string = str_replace (" ", "-", $string);

Look at the following article:

• How To Clean Special Characters From PHP String

Answer 2

With str_replace:

$str = str_replace(array(' ', '<', '>', '&', '{', '}', '*'), array('-'), $str);

Note:

If replace has fewer values than search, then an empty string is used for the rest of replacement values.