How to Remove Special Character from String in PHP ?

In this article, we will see how to remove special characters from strings in PHP, along with understanding their implementation through the examples. We have given a string and we need to remove special characters from string str in PHP, for this, we have the following methods in PHP:

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

Syntax:

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

Example: This example illustrates the use of the str_replace() function to remove the special characters from the string.

PHP

<?php
  // PHP program to Remove
  // Special Character From String

  // Function to remove the special
  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

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

Syntax:

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

Example: This example illustrates the use of the str_ireplace() method to remove all the special characters from the string.

PHP

<?php
  // PHP program to Remove
  // Special Character From String

  // Function to remove the special
  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

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: This example illustrates the use of the preg_replace() method where the particular or all the matched pattern found in the input string will be replaced with the substring or white space.

PHP

<?php
  // PHP program to Remove
  // Special Character From String

  // Function to remove the special
  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

PHP is a server-side scripting language designed specifically for web development. You can learn PHP from the ground up by following this PHP Tutorial and PHP Examples.