function help

[dadamssg]

i want to create a function that cleans the values completely. rather than fooling with it for an hour and getting frustrated, i figure you guys could help me out in two seconds.

i want it to do this

 

mysqli_real_escape_string($cxn, strip_tags($_POST['whatever']));

 

where

 

$cxn = mysqli_connect($host, $user,$passwd,$dbname) 
            or die ("Couldn't connect to server.");

 

is this close?

function clean_data()
{
  $cxn = mysqli_connect($host, $user,$passwd,$dbname) 
            or die ("Couldn't connect to server.");
mysqli_real_escape_string($cxn, strip_tags($variable));
}

 

all the values that will go into it will be $_POSTs so i don't really know what to put for the $variable part, or if i need to put something inside the parenthesis when im defining the function

 

basically i want to this

 

$clean_password = clean_data($_POST['password']);

 

[WolfRage]

<?php
function clean_data($var) {
    $var=trim($var);
    if(get_magic_quotes_gpc()) {
          $var=stripslashes($var);
    }
    $var=htmlentities($var,ENT_QUOTES);
    return $var;
}
?>

However you might want a variation of this function that uses htmlspecialchars() for data such as email addresses, where they have special characters in them.