remove special characters in php code example

Example 1: php strip out special characters

function clean($string) {
   $string = str_replace(' ', '-', $string); // Replaces all spaces with hyphens.

   return preg_replace('/[^A-Za-z0-9\-]/', '', $string); // Removes special chars.
}

Example 2: remove invalid characters from a string laravel

function hyphenize($string) {
    $dict = array(
        "I'm"      => "I am",
        "thier"    => "their",
        // Add your own replacements here
    );
    return strtolower(
        preg_replace(
          array( '#[\\s-]+#', '#[^A-Za-z0-9. -]+#' ),
          array( '-', '' ),
          // the full cleanString() can be downloaded from http://www.unexpectedit.com/php/php-clean-string-of-utf8-chars-convert-to-similar-ascii-char
          cleanString(
              str_replace( // preg_replace can be used to support more complicated replacements
                  array_keys($dict),
                  array_values($dict),
                  urldecode($string)
              )
          )
        )
    );
}

function cleanString($text) {
    $utf8 = array(
        '/[áàâãªä]/u'   =>   'a',
        '/[ÁÀÂÃÄ]/u'    =>   'A',
        '/[ÍÌÎÏ]/u'     =>   'I',
        '/[íìîï]/u'     =>   'i',
        '/[éèêë]/u'     =>   'e',
        '/[ÉÈÊË]/u'     =>   'E',
        '/[óòôõºö]/u'   =>   'o',
        '/[ÓÒÔÕÖ]/u'    =>   'O',
        '/[úùûü]/u'     =>   'u',
        '/[ÚÙÛÜ]/u'     =>   'U',
        '/ç/'           =>   'c',
        '/Ç/'           =>   'C',
        '/ñ/'           =>   'n',
        '/Ñ/'           =>   'N',
        '/–/'           =>   '-', // UTF-8 hyphen to "normal" hyphen
        '/[’‘‹›‚]/u'    =>   ' ', // Literally a single quote
        '/[“”«»„]/u'    =>   ' ', // Double quote
        '/ /'           =>   ' ', // nonbreaking space (equiv. to 0x160)
    );
    return preg_replace(array_keys($utf8), array_values($utf8), $text);
}

Example 3: php regex replace to remove special characters and accented

$unwanted_array = array(    'Š'=>'S', 'š'=>'s', 'Ž'=>'Z', 'ž'=>'z', 'À'=>'A', 'Á'=>'A', 'Â'=>'A', 'Ã'=>'A', 'Ä'=>'A', 'Å'=>'A', 'Æ'=>'A', 'Ç'=>'C', 'È'=>'E', 'É'=>'E',
                            'Ê'=>'E', 'Ë'=>'E', 'Ì'=>'I', 'Í'=>'I', 'Î'=>'I', 'Ï'=>'I', 'Ñ'=>'N', 'Ò'=>'O', 'Ó'=>'O', 'Ô'=>'O', 'Õ'=>'O', 'Ö'=>'O', 'Ø'=>'O', 'Ù'=>'U',
                            'Ú'=>'U', 'Û'=>'U', 'Ü'=>'U', 'Ý'=>'Y', 'Þ'=>'B', 'ß'=>'Ss', 'à'=>'a', 'á'=>'a', 'â'=>'a', 'ã'=>'a', 'ä'=>'a', 'å'=>'a', 'æ'=>'a', 'ç'=>'c',
                            'è'=>'e', 'é'=>'e', 'ê'=>'e', 'ë'=>'e', 'ì'=>'i', 'í'=>'i', 'î'=>'i', 'ï'=>'i', 'ð'=>'o', 'ñ'=>'n', 'ò'=>'o', 'ó'=>'o', 'ô'=>'o', 'õ'=>'o',
                            'ö'=>'o', 'ø'=>'o', 'ù'=>'u', 'ú'=>'u', 'û'=>'u', 'ý'=>'y', 'þ'=>'b', 'ÿ'=>'y' );
$str = strtr( $str, $unwanted_array );