How to Remove Special Character from String in PHP ?

Last Updated : 01 Jun, 2020

We have given a string and the task is to remove special characters from a string str in PHP. In order to do this task, we have the following methods in PHP:

Method 1: Using str_replace() Method: The str_replace() method is used to remove all the special character from the given string str by replacing these character with the white space (” “).

Syntax:

str_replace( $searchVal, $replaceVal, $subjectVal, $count )

Example :

PHP

<?php 
// PHP program to Remove  
// Special Character From String 
    
// Function to remove the spacial  
function RemoveSpecialChar($str) { 
      
    // Using str_replace() function  
    // to replace the word  
    $res = str_replace( array( '\'', '"', 
    ',' , ';', '<', '>' ), ' ', $str); 
      
    // Returning the result  
    return $res; 
    } 
  
// Given string 
$str = "Example,to remove<the>Special'Char;";  
  
// Function calling 
$str1 = RemoveSpecialChar($str);  
  
// Printing the result 
echo $str1;  
?>

Output

Example to remove the Special Char

Method 2: Using str_ireplace() Method: The str_ireplace() method is used to remove all the special character from the given string str by replacing these character with the white space (” “). The difference between str_replace and str_ireplace is that str_ireplace is a case-insensitive.

Syntax:

str_ireplace( $searchVal, $replaceVal, $subjectVal, $count )

Example :

PHP

<?php 
// PHP program to Remove  
// Special Character From String 
    
// Function to remove the spacial  
function RemoveSpecialChar($str){ 
      
    // Using str_ireplace() function  
    // to replace the word  
    $res = str_ireplace( array( '\'', '"', 
    ',' , ';', '<', '>' ), ' ', $str); 
      
    // returning the result  
    return $res; 
    } 
  
// Given string 
$str = "Example,to remove<the>Special'Char;";  
  
// Function calling 
$str1 = RemoveSpecialChar($str);  
  
// Printing the result 
echo $str1;  
?>

Output

Example to remove the Special Char

Method 3: Using preg_replace() Method: The preg_replace() method is used to perform a regular expression for search and replace the content.

Syntax:

preg_replace( $pattern, $replacement, $subject, $limit, $count )

Example :

PHP

<?php 
// PHP program to Remove  
// Special Character From String 
    
// Function to remove the spacial  
function RemoveSpecialChar($str){ 
      
    // Using preg_replace() function  
    // to replace the word  
    $res = preg_replace('/[^a-zA-Z0-9_ -]/s',' ',$str); 
      
    // Returning the result  
    return $res; 
} 
  
// Given string 
$str = "Example,to remove<the>Special'Char;";  
  
// Function calling 
$str1 = RemoveSpecialChar($str);  
  
// Printing the result 
echo $str1;  
?>

Output

Example to remove the Special Char

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