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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-13T18:03:42+00:00

This RegEx is for cleanup user input from a search form $query = preg_replace(/[^A-Za-z0-9

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This RegEx is for cleanup user input from a search form

$query = preg_replace("/[^A-Za-z0-9 _.,*&-]/", ' ', $query);

I need to add the slash as a valid character too, but if I add it, I get an error. I assume I have to escape it but can’t find how to do that

$query = preg_replace("/[^A-Za-z0-9 _.,*&-/]/", ' ', $query); // doesn't works
$query = preg_replace("/[^A-Za-z0-9 _.,*&-//]/", ' ', $query); // doesn't works
$query = preg_replace("/[^A-Za-z0-9 _.,*&-\/]/", ' ', $query); // doesn't works

Using php

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    You can use something other then the / as your delimiter – try something like this:

    $query = preg_replace("%[^A-Za-z0-9 _.,*&-/]%", ' ', $query);

    Kobe also posted the correct way to escape in that situation, but I find the regex stays more readable when I switch the delimiter to something I’m not using in the expression, when possible.

    EDIT

    A bit of additional information can be found at http://www.php.net/manual/en/regexp.reference.delimiters.php (quoting it here:)

    “When using the PCRE functions, it is required that the pattern is enclosed by delimiters. A delimiter can be any non-alphanumeric, non-backslash, non-whitespace character.”

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