note 53613 added to function.preg-match

If you want to get all the text characters from a string, possibly entered by a user, and filter out all the non alpha-numeric characters (perhaps to make an ID to enter user-submitted details into a database record), then you can use the function below. It returns a string of only the alpha-numeric characters from the input string (all in lower case), with all other chracters removed. <?php function removeNonAN($string){ preg_match_all('/(?:([a-z]+)|.)/i', $string, $matches); return strtolower(implode('', $matches[1])); };//EoFn removeNonAN ?> It took me quite a while tocome up with this regular expression. I hope it saves someone else that time. ---- Manual Page -- http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.preg-match.php Edit -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=edit+53613 Delete: added to the manual -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=delete+53613&report=yes&reason=added+to+the+manual Delete: bad code -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=delete+53613&report=yes&reason=bad+code Delete: spam -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=delete+53613&report=yes&reason=spam Delete: useless -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=delete+53613&report=yes&reason=useless Delete: other reasons -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=delete+53613&report=yes Reject -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=reject+53613&report=yes Search -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php