PHP FilterFunctions


PHP Filter Introduction

PHP filters are used to validate and filter data from non-secure sources (such as user input).


Installation

The Filter functions are part of the PHP core. No installation is required to use these functions.


PHP Filter Functions

PHP: Indicates the earliest PHP version that supports this function.

Function Description PHP
filter_has_var() Checks whether a variable of the specified input type exists. 5
filter_id() Returns the ID number of the specified filter. 5
filter_input() Gets input from outside the script and filters it. 5
filter_input_array() Gets multiple inputs from outside the script and filters them. 5
filter_list() Returns an array containing all supported filters. 5
filter_var_array() Gets multiple variables and filters them. 5
filter_var() Gets a single variable and filters it. 5


PHP Filters

ID Name Description
FILTER_CALLBACK Calls a user-defined function to filter data.
FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING Strips tags, removes or encodes special characters.
FILTER_SANITIZE_STRIPPED Alias of the "string" filter.
FILTER_SANITIZE_ENCODED URL-encode the string, removes or encodes special characters.
FILTER_SANITIZE_SPECIAL_CHARS HTML-escapes characters '"<>& and characters with ASCII values less than 32.
FILTER_SANITIZE_EMAIL Removes all characters except letters, digits, and !#$%&'*+-/=?^_`{|}~@.[]
FILTER_SANITIZE_URL Removes all characters except letters, digits, and $-_.+!*'(),{}|\^~[]`<>#%";/?:@&=
FILTER_SANITIZE_NUMBER_INT Removes all characters except digits and +-
FILTER_SANITIZE_NUMBER_FLOAT Removes all characters except digits, +-, and .,eE
FILTER_SANITIZE_MAGIC_QUOTES Applies addslashes().
FILTER_UNSAFE_RAW Does no filtering, removes or encodes special characters.
FILTER_VALIDATE_INT Validates the value as an integer.
FILTER_VALIDATE_BOOLEAN Validates the value as a boolean option. Returns TRUE for "1", "true", "on", and "yes". Returns FALSE for "0", "false", "off", "no", and "". Otherwise returns NULL.
FILTER_VALIDATE_FLOAT Validates the value as a float.
FILTER_VALIDATE_REGEXP Validates the value against regexp (a Perl-compatible regular expression).
FILTER_VALIDATE_URL Validates the value as a URL.
FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL Validates the value as an e-mail address.
FILTER_VALIDATE_IP Validates the value as an IP address, only IPv4 or IPv6, or not from private or reserved ranges.
Other Extensions