How to validate and sanitize user input with PHP?

Data validation is an integral part of web development, especially while working with forms where the user first enters their personal data and then sends that to the database. Data sent in an invalid format can cause DBMS security problems. Hackers often use SQL injections to insert malicious SQL commands into the database. SQL injections can even destroy the database once inserted. Therefore, to safeguard the database from hackers, it is necessary to sanitize and filter the user entered data before sending it to the database.

Let’s have an example of SQL injection to make the things clear.

Suppose the hackers enter ‘5=5’ in the ‘Username’ input box and then submits the data. The condition ‘5=5’ is always true. Therefore, the SQL command that will be executed after the ‘Submit’ button is pressed will be

SELECT * FROM registration WHERE UserId = 105 OR 1=1;

The above SQL command is error-free, and thus the MySQL server will execute it. But, what if the registration table contains sensitive information like credit card information or passwords. A hacker might get information about all the registered users just by entering ‘5=5’ in the username input box, and then misuse it.

To prevent such instances from happening, validation and sanitization of user data are required:
The filter_var function is used for such a purpose. This function generally takes two parameters. First is the variable that needs to be validated, and second is the type of check we want to do on that variable.

Let’s have a look at some of the types of checks along with their examples:

1. String Sanitization – FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING: This removes all the HTML tags from a string. This will sanitize the input string, and block any HTML tag from entering into the database.

   
   

   
   
   

   <?php $neveropen= "<h1>neveropen Portal</h1>"; $newneveropen = filter_var($neveropen, FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING); echo $newneveropen; ?>

   Output:

   neveropen Portal

   Code Explanation:
   The ‘neveropen’ variable in the above example stores the header ‘neveropen Portal’. This ‘neveropen’ variable is then filtered using the FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING. The filtered string is then stored in the ‘newneveropen’ variable. After echoing, the output comes out to be ‘neveropen Portal’. This is because there was no HTML tag in the original string, and thus was nothing to filter.

2. IP Address Validation – FILTER_VALIDATE_IP: This filter checks whether the IP address is valid or not.

   
   

   
   
   

   <?php $ipaddr = "126.0.0.5";    if (!filter_var($ipaddr, FILTER_VALIDATE_IP) === false) {     echo("Valid IP-address"); } else {     echo("Invalid IP-address"); } ?>

   Output:

   Valid IP-address

   Code Explanation:
   The IP address stored in the $ipaddr variable is found out to be valid. If ‘126.2.5’ was stored in the $ipaddr variable, then the output will come out to be ‘Invalid IP-address’. This is because it doesn’t follow the protocol designed for IP addresses.

3. Integer Sanitization – FILTER_VALIDATE_INT: This filter checks whether a variable is an integer or not.

   
   

   
   
   

   <?php $num = 500;    if (!filter_var($num, FILTER_VALIDATE_INT) === false) {     echo("Valid"); } else {     echo("Invalid"); } ?>

   Output:

   Valid

   Code Explanation:
   The code will output ‘Valid’ if $num is a valid integer, otherwise, the output will be ‘Invalid’. Here, 500 is an integer, and that’s why the output comes out to be ‘Valid’.

4. Email ID Validation – FILTER_SANITIZE_EMAIL and FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL: This filter first removes all the illegal characters from the email and then checks whether the format is valid or not.

   
   

   
   
   

   <?php $em = "career@neveropen.com";    // Removing the illegal characters $em = filter_var($em, FILTER_SANITIZE_EMAIL);    //Validating if (!filter_var($em, FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL) === false) {     echo("$em is valid"); } else {     echo("$em is invalid"); } ?>

   Output:

   career@neveropen.com is valid

   Code Explanation:
   First, the email stored in the $em variable is sanitized to remove any illegal characters like ‘/><)*&^’ etc. After sanitizing, the email is validated, to check whether the email entered is in a valid format or not.

5. URL Validation – FILTER_SANITIZE_URL: Like the email filter, this filter also first removes all the illegal characters from the URL and then checks whether the format is valid or not.

   
   

   
   
   

   <?php $url = "https://www.neveropen.com";    //url sanitizer $url = filter_var($url, FILTER_SANITIZE_URL);    //url validator if (!filter_var($url, FILTER_VALIDATE_URL) === false) {     echo("$url is valid"); } else {     echo("$url is invalid"); } ?>

   Output:

   https://www.neveropen.com is valid

   Code Explanation:
   The email stored in the $url variable is first sanitized to remove the illegal characters. After that, the URL is checked to find out whether the URL format is valid or not.