Strip All Non Alphanumeric Characters

This simple function provides a basic wrapper for the PHP function preg_match to strip out the unwanted characters and returns a sanitized string, including white space characters.


<?php
    /**
    * Remove all non alpha numeric characters except a space
    *
    * @param    string    $string The string to cleanse
    *
    * @return    string
    *
    */
    function alphanumericAndSpace( $string )
    {
        return preg_replace('/[^a-zA-Z0-9\s]/', '', $string);
    }


?>

Note that in the example function above, the \s modifier is used to capture the space. This will also capture newline characters also.

Example 

<?php
      
    $string = '(1234) S*m@#ith S)&+*t `E}{xam)ple?>land 1!_2)#3';
    echo alphanumericAndSpace( $string ); 

?>

Output
 

1234 Smith St Exampleland 123