addslashes

(PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7)

addslashes — Quote string with slashes

Description

string addslashes ( string $str )

Returns a string with backslashes before characters that need to be escaped. These characters are single quote ('), double quote ("), backslash (\) and NUL (the NULL byte).

An example use of addslashes() is when you're entering data into string that is evaluated by PHP. For example, O'Reilly is stored in $str, you need to escape $str. (e.g. eval("echo '".addslashes($str)."';"); )

To escape database parameters, DBMS specific escape function (e.g. mysqli_real_escape_string() for MySQL or pg_escape_literal(), pg_escape_string() for PostgreSQL) should be used for security reasons. DBMSes have differect escape specification for identifiers (e.g. Table name, field name) than parameters. Some DBMS such as PostgreSQL provides identifier escape function, pg_escape_identifier(), but not all DBMS provides identifier escape API. If this is the case, refer to your database system manual for proper escaping method.

If your DBMS doesn't have an escape function and the DBMS uses \ to escape special chars, you might be able to use this function only when this escape method is adequate for your database. Please note that use of addslashes() for database parameter escaping can be cause of security issues on most databases.

The PHP directive magic_quotes_gpc was on by default before PHP 5.4, and it essentially ran addslashes() on all GET, POST, and COOKIE data. Do not use addslashes() on strings that have already been escaped with magic_quotes_gpc as you'll then do double escaping. The function get_magic_quotes_gpc() may come in handy for checking this.

Parameters

str: The string to be escaped.

Return Values

Returns the escaped string.

Examples

Example #1 An addslashes() example


<?php
$str = "Is your name O'Reilly?";

// Outputs: Is your name O\'Reilly?
echo addslashes($str);
?>

User Contributed Notes

mark at hagers dot demon dot nl

11 years ago


I was stumped for a long time by the fact that even when using addslashes and stripslashes explicitly on the field values double quotes (") still didn't seem to show up in strings read from a database. Until I looked at the source, and realised that the field value is just truncated at the first occurrence of a double quote. the remainder of the string is there (in the source), but is ignored when the form is displayed and submitted.

This can easily be solved by replacing double quotes with "&quot;" when building the form. like this:
$fld_value =  str_replace ( "\"", "&quot;", $src_string ) ;
The reverse replacement after the form submission is not necessary.

wyattstorch42 at outlook dot com

2 years ago


@ mark at hagers dot demon dot nl :

You shouldn't use str_replace() for this. Use a function like htmlentities(), which will properly encode all user input for fields. That way, it will also work if the user types &, <, >, etc.

svenr at selfhtml dot org

5 years ago


To output a PHP variable to Javascript, use json_encode().

<?php

$var = "He said \"Hello O'Reilly\" & disappeared.\nNext line...";
echo "alert(".json_encode($var).");\n";

?>

Output:
alert("He said \"Hello O'Reilly\" & disappeared.\nNext line...") ;

pulstar at ig dot com dot br

9 years ago


May it is better use the function mysql_real_escape_string instead of addslashes when inserting data into a MySQL database. Check it at:

http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.mysql-real-escape-string.php

sam dot fullman at verizon

9 years ago


There are other functions "kind of" like this one but this should help adding slashes to a form post which also contains arrays (and you can't access runtime quotes), or you need to add slashes to an array which is already stripped:

<?php
    function addslashes_array($a){
        if(is_array($a)){
            foreach($a as $n=>$v){
                $b[$n]=addslashes_array($v);
            }
            return $b;
        }else{
            return addslashes($a);
        }
    }
?>

note this does not add slashes to the keys - you could easily modify to do this..

Adrian C

9 years ago


What happends when you add addslashes(addslashes($str))? This is not a good thing and it may be fixed:

function checkaddslashes($str){        
    if(strpos(str_replace("\'",""," $str"),"'")!=false)
        return addslashes($str);
    else
        return $str;
}

checkaddslashes("aa'bb");  => aa\'bb
checkaddslashes("aa\'bb"); => aa\'bb
checkaddslashes("\'"); => \'
checkaddslashes("'");  => \'

Hope this will help you

steve at teamITS dot com

13 years ago


For thelogrus, my testing shows the opposite--that a slashed string is stored correctly by MySQL.  Consider

insert into test (field1) values ('test\'test')

...which is stored as "test'test".  If you were posting "Sir'Weaser" from a form to your script and have magic_quotes_gpc on, then the string is slashed already so if you run addslashes() again you will be entering "Sir\\'Weaser" into MySQL.  In that case "Sir\'Weaser" would be the correct output.

In summary, addslashes() is not necessary if magic_quotes_gpc is on.

Raymond Hofman

7 years ago


In addition to the post made by Aditya P Bhatt below. This code works fine for posting a single string but does not work for posting arrays.

php at slamb dot org

13 years ago


spamdunk at home dot com, your way is dangerous on PostgreSQL (and presumably MySQL). You're quite correct that ANSI SQL specifies using ' to escape, but those databases also support \ for escaping (in violation of the standard, I think). Which means that if they pass in a string that includes a "\'", you expand it to "\'''" (an escaped quote followed by a non-escaped quote. WRONG! Attackers can execute arbitrary SQL to drop your tables, make themselves administrators, whatever they want.)



The best way to be safe and correct is to:



- don't use magic quotes; this approach is bad. For starters, that's making the assumption that you will be using your input in a database query, which is arbitrary. (Why not escape all "<"s with "&lt;"s instead? Cross-site scripting attacks are quite common as well.) It's better to set up a way that does whatever escaping is correct for you when you use it, as below:



- when inserting into the database, use prepared statements with placeholders. For example, when using PEAR DB:



<?php

    $stmt = $dbh->prepare('update mb_users set password = ? where username = ?');

    $dbh->execute($stmt, array('12345', 'bob'));

?>



Notice that there are no quotes around the ?s. It handles that for you automatically. It's guaranteed to be safe for your database. (Just ' on oracle, \ and ' on PostgreSQL, but you don't even have to think about it.)



Plus, if the database supports prepared statements (the soon-to-be-released PostgreSQL 7.3, Oracle, etc), several executes on the same prepare can be faster, since it can reuse the same query plan. If it doesn't (MySQL, etc), this way falls back to quoting code that's specifically written for your database, avoiding the problem I mentioned above.



(Pardon my syntax if it's off. I'm not really a PHP programmer; this is something I know from similar things in Java, Perl, PL/SQL, Python, Visual Basic, etc.)

thisisroot at gmail dot com

10 years ago


In response to Krasimir Slavov and Luiz Miguel Axcar:

There are several encoding schemes for inserting binary data into places it doesn't typically belong, such as databases and e-mail bodies. Check out the base64_encode() and convert_uuencode() functions for the details.

hoskerr at nukote dot com

13 years ago


Beware of using addslashes() on input to the serialize() function.   serialize() stores strings with their length; the length must match the stored string or unserialize() will fail.  



Such a mismatch can occur if you serialize the result of addslashes() and store it in a database; some databases (definitely including PostgreSQL) automagically strip backslashes from "special" chars in SELECT results, causing the returned string to be shorter than it was when it was serialized.



In other words, do this...



<?php

$string="O'Reilly";

$ser=serialize($string);    # safe -- won't count the slash

$result=addslashes($ser); 

?>



...and not this...



<?php

$string="O'Reilly";

$add=addslashes($string);   # RISKY!  -- will count the slash

$result=serialize($add);

?>



In both cases, a backslash will be added after the apostrophe in "O'Reilly"; only in the second case will the backslash be included in the string length as recorded by serialize().



[Note to the maintainers: You may, at your option, want to link this note to serialize() as well as to addslashes().  I'll refrain from doing such cross-posting myself...]

hazy underscore fakie at ringwraith dot org

12 years ago


Note that when using addslashes() on a string that includes cyrillic characters, addslashes() totally mixes up the string, rendering it unusable.

roysimke at microsoftsfirstmailprovider dot com

5 years ago


Never use addslashes function to escape values you are going to send to mysql. use mysql_real_escape_string or pg_escape at least if you are not using prepared queries yet.

keep in mind that single quote is not the only special character that can break your sql query. and quotes are the only thing which addslashes care.

David Spector

2 years ago


If all you want to do is quote a string as you would normally do in PHP (for example, when returning an Ajax result, inside a json string value, or when building a URL with args), don't use addslashes (you don't want both " and ' escaped at the same time). Instead, just use this function:

<?php
function Quote($Str) // Double-quoting only
    {
    $Str=str_replace('"','\"',$Str);
    return '"'.$Str.'"';
    } // Quote
?>

Modify this easily to get a single-quoting function.

Luiz Miguel Axcar (lmaxcar at yahoo dot com dot br)

10 years ago


Hello,

If you are getting trouble to SGDB write/read HTML data, try to use this:

<?php

//from html_entity_decode() manual page
function unhtmlentities ($string) {
   $trans_tbl =get_html_translation_table (HTML_ENTITIES );
   $trans_tbl =array_flip ($trans_tbl );
   return strtr ($string ,$trans_tbl );
}

//read from db
$content = stripslashes (htmlspecialchars ($field['content']));

//write to db
$content = unhtmlentities (addslashes (trim ($_POST['content'])));

//make sure result of function get_magic_quotes_gpc () == 0, you can get strange slashes in your content adding slashes twice

//better to do this using addslashes
$content = (! get_magic_quotes_gpc ()) ? addslashes ($content) : $content;

?>

Nate from RuggFamily.com

8 years ago


If you want to add slashes to special symbols that would interfere with a regular expression (i.e., . \ + * ? [ ^ ] $ ( ) { } = ! < > | :), you should use the preg_quote() function.

cliprz at gmail dot com

5 years ago


<?php

/**
 * @desc add slashes if use MySQL and check if function addslashes is exits else
 * return to escape string in MySQL .
 * same way its return to stripslashes function
 * @param string $type any string u want to insert in MySQL and display from MySQL
 * @param string $type must be add to add slashes and strip to strip slashes
 * @author Yousef Ismaeil - cliprz@gmail.com
 */
function PHP_slashes($string,$type='add')
{
    if ($type == 'add')
    {
        if (get_magic_quotes_gpc())
        {
            return $string;
        }
        else
        {
            if (function_exists('addslashes'))
            {
                return addslashes($string);
            }
            else
            {
                return mysql_real_escape_string($string);
            }
        }
    }
    else if ($type == 'strip')
    {
        return stripslashes($string);
    }
    else
    {
        die('error in PHP_slashes (mixed,add | strip)');
    }
}

?>

luciano at vittoretti dot com dot br

10 years ago


Note, this function wont work with mssql or access queries.
Use the function above (work with arrays too).

function addslashes_mssql($str){
    if (is_array($str)) {
        foreach($str AS $id => $value) {
            $str[$id] = addslashes_mssql($value);
        }
    } else {
        $str = str_replace("'", "''", $str);    
    }
    
    return $str;
}

function stripslashes_mssql($str){
    if (is_array($str)) {
        foreach($str AS $id => $value) {
            $str[$id] = stripslashes_mssql($value);
        }
    } else {
        $str = str_replace("''", "'", $str);    
    }

    return $str;
}

yoder2 at purdue dot edu

9 years ago


to quote boris-pieper AT t-online DOT de, 15-Jan-2005 06:07,

Note: You should use mysql_real_escape_string() (http://php.net/mysql_real_escape_string) if possible (PHP => 4.3.0) instead of mysql_escape_string().

You may also want to us it instead of addslashes.

phil at internetprojectmanagers dot com

13 years ago


re: problem with mcrypt, addslashes and mysql



Here is my solution to the problem of characters from mcrypt creating issues with mysql calls (due to characters which aren't cleaned up by addslashes).



Solution: simply convert your encryption string to hex, then back to binary when you are ready to decrypt.



<?php

// ie.

$encrypted = addslashes($string);    

$encrypted = bin2hex($encrypted);



// ... then:

$decrypted = hex2bin($encrypted);

$decrypted = stripslashes($decrypted);



// where hex2bin() is:

function hex2bin($hexdata) {

  $bindata="";

  

  for ($i=0;$i<strlen($hexdata);$i+=2) {

    $bindata.=chr(hexdec(substr($hexdata,$i,2)));

  }



  return $bindata;

}

?>



One word of caution: this will increase the length of your initial data string, so you will need to increase the field length for your mysql database.



Cheers, Phil

PS. I knew that I'd eventually be able to give something back to the site!

stuart at horuskol dot co dot uk

7 years ago


Be careful on whether you use double or single quotes when creating the string to be escaped:

$test = 'This is one line\r\nand this is another\r\nand this line has\ta tab';

echo $test;
echo "\r\n\r\n";
echo addslashes($test);

$test = "This is one line\r\nand this is another\r\nand this line has\ta tab";

echo $test;
echo "\r\n\r\n";
echo addslashes($test);

Picky

9 years ago


This function is deprecated in PHP 4.0, according to this article:

http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=06/05/23/2141246

Also, it is worth mentioning that PostgreSQL will soon start to block queries involving escaped single quotes using \ as the escape character, for some cases, which depends on the string's encoding.  The standard way to escape quotes in SQL (not all SQL databases, mind you) is by changing single quotes into two single quotes (e.g, ' ' ' becomes ' '' ' for queries).

You should look into other ways for escaping strings, such as "mysql_real_escape_string" (see the comment below), and other such database specific escape functions.

unsafed

11 years ago


addslashes does NOT make your input safe for use in a database query! It only escapes according to what PHP defines, not what your database driver defines. Any use of this function to escape strings for use in a database is likely an error - mysql_real_escape_string, pg_escape_string, etc, should be used depending on your underlying database as each database has different escaping requirements. In particular, MySQL wants \n, \r and \x1a escaped which addslashes does NOT do. Therefore relying on addslashes is not a good idea at all and may make your code vulnerable to security risks. I really don't see what this function is supposed to do.

hybrid at n0spam dot pearlmagik dot com

14 years ago


Remember to slash underscores (_) and percent signs (%), too, if you're going use the LIKE operator on the variable or you'll get some unexpected results.

php at NO_SPAMj-w3 dot com

15 years ago


As mentioned, magic_quotes_gpc automatically adds slashes to POST and GET data and these slashes don't go in the database.  BUT, be careful of this. If you have a form with an error check, make sure you strip the slashes if your form remembers the OK fields, so the user doesn't view these automagically added slashes.

joechrz at gmail dot com

9 years ago


Here's an example of a function that prevents double-quoting, I'm surprised noone has put something like this up yet... (also works on arrays)

<?php
function escape_quotes($receive) {
    if (!is_array($receive))
        $thearray = array($receive);
    else
        $thearray = $receive;
    
    foreach (array_keys($thearray) as $string) {
        $thearray[$string] = addslashes($thearray[$string]);
        $thearray[$string] = preg_replace("/[\\/]+/","/",$thearray[$string]);
    }
    
    if (!is_array($receive)) 
        return $thearray[0];
    else
        return $thearray;
}
?>

DarkHunterj

6 years ago


Based on:
Danijel Pticar
05-Aug-2009 05:22
I recommend this extended version, to replace addslashes altogether(works for both strings and arrays):
<?php
function addslashesextended(&$arr_r)
{
    if(is_array($arr_r))
    {
        foreach ($arr_r as &$val)
            is_array($val) ? addslashesextended($val):$val=addslashes($val);
        unset($val);
    }
    else
        $arr_r=addslashes($arr_r);
}
?>

leocullen at fastmail dot fm

7 years ago


this is my version of an addslashes function, useful for processing $_POST array:



<?php

function add_slashes ($an_array) {

  foreach ($an_array as $key => $value) {

    $new_array[$key] = addslashes($an_array[$key]); 

  }

}

?>



then call it:



<?php add_slashes($_POST); ?>

Aditya P Bhatt (adityabhai at gmail dot com)

8 years ago


Automagically add slashes to $_POST variables. It helps to prevent some sql injection attacks. Also works with $_GET variables. 

FILE NAME: input_cl.php
<?php
//create array to temporarily grab variables
$input_arr = array();
//grabs the $_POST variables and adds slashes
foreach ($_POST as $key => $input_arr) {
    $_POST[$key] = addslashes($input_arr);
}
?>

Just put this at the top of your script that gets the variables. Here is an example.

Usage Example
<?php
include("input_cl.php");
// all $_POST variables have slashes added to them
$f_name = $_POST["f_name"];
$l_name = $_POST["l_name"];
$phone_num = $_POST["phone_num"];
$address1 = $_POST["address1"];
$address2 = $_POST["address2"];
$city = $_POST["city"];
$State = $_POST["State"];
$zip = $_POST["zip"];

//sql insert code goes here.
?>

Krasimir Slavov kkslavov at yahoo dot com

10 years ago


If you have problems with adding images or other binady data with addslashes() for php 4.3 >= use:

<?php
$search = array("\x00", "\x0a", "\x0d", "\x1a", "\x09");
$replace = array('\0', '\n', '\r', '\Z' , '\t');

$chrData .= str_replace($search, $replace, $Data );
?>

and put in your SQL field='$chrData' ! please remark quotes

phil at internetprojectmanagers dot com

13 years ago


re: encryption, addslashes and mysql

Note that mcrypt encryption may add in an apostrophe from the ascii table which cannot be protected by addslashes. It may not even be on your keyboard.

Because encryption strings are random, you may not discover it unless you test (or stumble?) on the correct sequence which inserts an apostrophe in the encrypted string. 

This means that testing is even more important where encryption is concerned. If I create a solution I'll post it here.

Phil

qeremy [atta] gmail [dotta] com

4 years ago


Actually I prefer to escape the SQL queries completely (then no more challenge for data security);

<?php
function escape_query($str) {
    return strtr($str, array(
        "\0" => "",
        "'"  => "&#39;",
        "\"" => "&#34;",
        "\\" => "&#92;",
        // more secure
        "<"  => "&lt;",
        ">"  => "&gt;",
    ));
}
?>

// &#39;&#34;&#92;
echo escape_query("'\"\\\0");

// &lt;script&gt;alert(1)&lt;/script&gt;
echo escape_query("<\0script>alert(1)<\0/script>");

// See more: www.asciitable.com

Danijel Pticar

6 years ago


Hi,

I use this recursive function for POST. It handles multidimensional arrays.



<?php

function as_array(&$arr_r)

{

 foreach ($arr_r as &$val) is_array($val) ? as_array($val):$val=addslashes($val);

 unset($val);

}



as_array($_POST);

?>

Lars

4 years ago


Even for simple json string backslash encodings, do not use this function. Some tests may work fine, but in json the single quote (') must not be escaped.

Taslim Sohel (sohel62 at yahoo dot com)

7 years ago


About Raymond and Aditya's post

Following code can help you to add slashes with posted array.
I just added a recursive function with Aditya's code.

<?php
//create array to temporarily grab variables
$input_arr = array();
//grabs the $_POST variables and adds slashes
foreach ($_POST as $key => $input_arr) {
    if(is_array($input_arr)){        
        $_POST[$key] = addslashes_array($input_arr);
    }else{
        $_POST[$key] = addslashes($input_arr);
    }
    
}

// Recursive Function to add slashes with posted array.
function addslashes_array($input_arr){
    if(is_array($input_arr)){
        $tmp = array();
        foreach ($input_arr as $key1 => $val){
            $tmp[$key1] = addslashes_array($val);
        }
        return $tmp;
    }else{
        return addslashes($input_arr);
    }
}

?>

guy_AT_datalink_DOT_net_DOT_au

14 years ago


If you're trying to escape quotes in a javascript event as such:

<img src="foo.gif" OnMouseOver="alert('<? print $myString ?>')">

It helps to perform this first:

$myString = str_replace("'", "\'", $myString);
$myString = str_replace('"', "'+String.fromCharCode(34)+'", $myString);

11 years ago


Regarding the previous note using addslashes/stripslahes with regular expressions and databases it looks as if the purpose of these functions gets mixed.

addslahes encodes data to be sent to a database or something similar. Here you need addslashes because you send commands to the database as command strings that contain data and thus you have to escape characters that are special in the command language like SQL.

Therefore the use of addslahses on a regex does properly store the regex in the database.

stripslashes does the opposite: it decodes an addslashes encoded string. However, retrieving data from a database works differently: it does not go through some string interpretation because you actually retrieve your binary data in your variables. In other words: the data stored in your variable is the unmodified binary data that your database returned. You do not run stripslahes on data returned from a database. That way, the regexs are retrieved correctly, too.

This is different from other data exchange like urlencoded strings that you exchange with your browser. Here the data channel uses the same encodings in both directions: therefore you have to encode data to be sent and you have to decode data received.

boyaqb at gmail dot com

4 years ago


so you can use replace single quote and double quote with HTML Entities

for example

<?php
/**
 * replcae quotes to HTML entities by names or numbers
 *
 * @param (string) escaped string value
 * @param (string) default ='number' will be return to number entities you can use ='name' to return name entities
 * Note : don't use ='name' coz (&apos;) (does not work in IE)
 */
function quote2entities($string,$entities_type='number')
{
    $search                     = array("\"","'");
    $replace_by_entities_name   = array("&quot;","&apos;");
    $replace_by_entities_number = array("&#34;","&#39;");
    $do = null;
    if ($entities_type == 'number')
    {
        $do = str_replace($search,$replace_by_entities_number,$string);
    }
    else if ($entities_type == 'name')
    {
        $do = str_replace($search,$replace_by_entities_name,$string);
    }
    else
    {
        $do = addslashes($string);
    }
    return $do;
}

echo quote2entities("I love 'PHP' for ever");
// will return I love 'PHP' for ever in browsere
// but in view code and database will be  I love &#34;PHP&#34; for ever in source
?>

addslashes

Description

Parameters

Return Values

Examples

See Also

User Contributed Notes