You can avoid all character escaping issues (on the PHP side) if you use prepare() and bind_param(), as an alternative to placing arbitrary string values in SQL statements. This works because bound parameter values are NOT passed via the SQL statement syntax.
mysqli::real_escape_string
mysqli_real_escape_string
(PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)
mysqli::real_escape_string -- mysqli_real_escape_string — Escapes special characters in a string for use in an SQL statement, taking into account the current charset of the connection
Description
Object-oriented style
Procedural style
This function is used to create a legal SQL string that you can use in an SQL statement. The given string is encoded to produce an escaped SQL string, taking into account the current character set of the connection.
Caution
Security: the default character set
The character set must be set either at the server level, or with the API function mysqli_set_charset() for it to affect mysqli_real_escape_string(). See the concepts section on character sets for more information.
Parameters
-
mysql -
Procedural style only: A mysqli object returned by mysqli_connect() or mysqli_init()
-
string -
The string to be escaped.
Characters encoded are
NUL (ASCII 0),\n,\r,\,',", and CTRL+Z.
Return Values
Returns an escaped string.
Examples
Example #1 mysqli::real_escape_string() example
Object-oriented style
<?php
mysqli_report(MYSQLI_REPORT_ERROR | MYSQLI_REPORT_STRICT);
$mysqli = new mysqli("localhost", "my_user", "my_password", "world");
$city = "'s-Hertogenbosch";
/* this query with escaped $city will work */
$query = sprintf("SELECT CountryCode FROM City WHERE name='%s'",
$mysqli->real_escape_string($city));
$result = $mysqli->query($query);
printf("Select returned %d rows.\n", $result->num_rows);
/* this query will fail, because we didn't escape $city */
$query = sprintf("SELECT CountryCode FROM City WHERE name='%s'", $city);
$result = $mysqli->query($query);Procedural style
<?php
mysqli_report(MYSQLI_REPORT_ERROR | MYSQLI_REPORT_STRICT);
$mysqli = mysqli_connect("localhost", "my_user", "my_password", "world");
$city = "'s-Hertogenbosch";
/* this query with escaped $city will work */
$query = sprintf("SELECT CountryCode FROM City WHERE name='%s'",
mysqli_real_escape_string($mysqli, $city));
$result = mysqli_query($mysqli, $query);
printf("Select returned %d rows.\n", mysqli_num_rows($result));
/* this query will fail, because we didn't escape $city */
$query = sprintf("SELECT CountryCode FROM City WHERE name='%s'", $city);
$result = mysqli_query($mysqli, $query);The above examples will output something similar to:
Select returned 1 rows. Fatal error: Uncaught mysqli_sql_exception: You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 's-Hertogenbosch'' at line 1 in...
add a note
User Contributed Notes 7 notes
dave at mausner.us ¶
13 years ago
Josef Toman ¶
14 years ago
For percent sign and underscore I use this:
<?php
$more_escaped = addcslashes($escaped, '%_');
?>
arnoud at procurios dot nl ¶
20 years ago
Note that this function will NOT escape _ (underscore) and % (percent) signs, which have special meanings in LIKE clauses.
As far as I know there is no function to do this, so you have to escape them yourself by adding a backslash in front of them.
therselman at gmail dot com ¶
7 years ago
Presenting several UTF-8 / Multibyte-aware escape functions.
These functions represent alternatives to mysqli::real_escape_string, as long as your DB connection and Multibyte extension are using the same character set (UTF-8), they will produce the same results by escaping the same characters as mysqli::real_escape_string.
This is based on research I did for my SQL Query Builder class:
https://github.com/twister-php/sql
<?php
/**
* Returns a string with backslashes before characters that need to be escaped.
* As required by MySQL and suitable for multi-byte character sets
* Characters encoded are NUL (ASCII 0), \n, \r, \, ', ", and ctrl-Z.
*
* @param string $string String to add slashes to
* @return $string with `\` prepended to reserved characters
*
* @author Trevor Herselman
*/
if (function_exists('mb_ereg_replace'))
{
function mb_escape(string $string)
{
return mb_ereg_replace('[\x00\x0A\x0D\x1A\x22\x27\x5C]', '\\\0', $string);
}
} else {
function mb_escape(string $string)
{
return preg_replace('~[\x00\x0A\x0D\x1A\x22\x27\x5C]~u', '\\\$0', $string);
}
}
?>
Characters escaped are (the same as mysqli::real_escape_string):
00 = \0 (NUL)
0A = \n
0D = \r
1A = ctl-Z
22 = "
27 = '
5C = \
Note: preg_replace() is in PCRE_UTF8 (UTF-8) mode (`u`).
Enhanced version:
When escaping strings for `LIKE` syntax, remember that you also need to escape the special characters _ and %
So this is a more fail-safe version (even when compared to mysqli::real_escape_string, because % characters in user input can cause unexpected results and even security violations via SQL injection in LIKE statements):
<?php
/**
* Returns a string with backslashes before characters that need to be escaped.
* As required by MySQL and suitable for multi-byte character sets
* Characters encoded are NUL (ASCII 0), \n, \r, \, ', ", and ctrl-Z.
* In addition, the special control characters % and _ are also escaped,
* suitable for all statements, but especially suitable for `LIKE`.
*
* @param string $string String to add slashes to
* @return $string with `\` prepended to reserved characters
*
* @author Trevor Herselman
*/
if (function_exists('mb_ereg_replace'))
{
function mb_escape(string $string)
{
return mb_ereg_replace('[\x00\x0A\x0D\x1A\x22\x25\x27\x5C\x5F]', '\\\0', $string);
}
} else {
function mb_escape(string $string)
{
return preg_replace('~[\x00\x0A\x0D\x1A\x22\x25\x27\x5C\x5F]~u', '\\\$0', $string);
}
}
?>
Additional characters escaped:
25 = %
5F = _
Bonus function:
The original MySQL `utf8` character-set (for tables and fields) only supports 3-byte sequences.
4-byte characters are not common, but I've had queries fail to execute on 4-byte UTF-8 characters, so you should be using `utf8mb4` wherever possible.
However, if you still want to use `utf8`, you can use the following function to replace all 4-byte sequences.
<?php
// Modified from: https://stackoverflow.com/a/24672780/2726557
function mysql_utf8_sanitizer(string $str)
{
return preg_replace('/[\x{10000}-\x{10FFFF}]/u', "\xEF\xBF\xBD", $str);
}
?>
Pick your poison and use at your own risk!
Anonymous ¶
9 years ago
If you wonder why (besides \, ' and ") NUL (ASCII 0), \n, \r, and Control-Z are escaped: it is not to prevent sql injection, but to prevent your sql logfile to get unreadable.
ASchmidt at Anamera dot net ¶
3 years ago
Caution when escaping the % and _ wildcard characters. According to an often overlooked note at the bottom of:
https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/string-literals.html#character-escape-sequences
the escape sequences \% and \_ will ONLY be interpreted as % and _, *if* they occur in a LIKE! (Same for MySQL 8.0)
In regular string literals, the escape sequences \% and \_ are treated as those two character pairs. So if those escape sequences appear in a WHERE "=" instead of a WHERE LIKE, they would NOT match a single % or _ character!
Consequently, one MUST use two "escape" functions: The real-escape-string (or equivalent) for regular string literals, and an amended escape function JUST for string literals that are intended to be used in LIKE.
Lawrence DOliveiro ¶
6 years ago
Note that the “like” operator requires an *additional* level of escaping for its special characters, *on top of* that performed by mysql_escape_string. But there is no built-in function for performing this escaping. Here is a function that does it:
function escape_sql_wild($s)
/* escapes SQL pattern wildcards in s. */
{
$result = array();
foreach(str_split($s) as $ch)
{
if ($ch == "\\" || $ch == "%" || $ch == "_")
{
$result[] = "\\";
} /*if*/
$result[] = $ch;
} /*foreach*/
return
implode("", $result);
} /*escape_sql_wild*/
