PHP unknown character in string

Question

While calling an HTTP API i get a string of integers as result. the var_dump of the same is like below

string '249139110' (length=12)

But this string have some invisible characters along with it. I tried the below code

foreach (count_chars($id, 1) as $i => $val) {
   echo "<br>There were $val instance(s) of \"" , chr($i) , "\" in the string." . ord($i) . " : " .gettype($i) ;
}

and the result i like below

There were 1 instance(s) of "0" in the string.52 : integer
There were 3 instance(s) of "1" in the string.52 : integer
There were 1 instance(s) of "2" in the string.53 : integer
There were 1 instance(s) of "3" in the string.53 : integer
There were 1 instance(s) of "4" in the string.53 : integer
There were 2 instance(s) of "9" in the string.53 : integer
There were 1 instance(s) of "�" in the string.49 : integer
There were 1 instance(s) of "�" in the string.49 : integer
There were 1 instance(s) of "�" in the string.50 : integer

Please help me to remove these � characters. Thanks in advance.

Do a bin2hex to see what those are. (Perhaps NUL chars). Then trim, cast or regex-whitelist the string to an integer. — mario
– mario, Commented Jan 12, 2018 at 6:56
Trim the scring. Even the var_dump shows that it's longer than it is. PS: also you can output $i and look it up in ASCII table, e.g. here ascii.cl — Sergey Benzenko
– Sergey Benzenko, Commented Jan 12, 2018 at 6:59

Saad Suri · Accepted Answer · 2018-01-12 07:02:25Z

1

FILTER_FLAG_STRIP_LOW|FILTER_FLAG_STRIP_HIGH and FILTER_UNSAFE_RAW will do the trick Try the code below

$unsafe='There were 1 instance(s) of "�" in the string.49 : integer';
$string = filter_var($unsafe, FILTER_UNSAFE_RAW, FILTER_FLAG_STRIP_LOW|FILTER_FLAG_STRIP_HIGH);
echo $string;

Output will be:

There were 1 instance(s) of "" in the string.49 : integer

For more information read: String sanitization through filter_var

answered Jan 12, 2018 at 7:02

Saad Suri

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