Remove all bad words (swearwords) from user input string?

Question

I was trying to take out swear words from a string and thought I had it done, until someone on this site showed me this: http://codepad.org/LMuhFH4g

So, is there any way I can go over a string until its clean of all swear words.

$a = array( 'duck', 'chit', 'dsshole' ); 

$str = 'duchitck-you-dssduckhole'; 

$newString = str_ireplace($a,'',$str); 
$newString = str_ireplace('-','',$newString); 
$newString = trim($newString); 
echo $newString;

score 12 · Accepted Answer · edited Oct 20 '18 at 14:21

The easy solution is to pass the fourth optional $count parameter.

do { 
    $str = str_ireplace(..., ..., ..., $count);
} while ($count);

To truly remove curse words though.... Good luck with that. There's just too many variations to ever completely filter natural language (word, werd, w0rd, w3rd, etc -- if someone wants to call someone a name badly enough, they'll find a way; websites tend to use moderation for a reason).

This approach is unusably basic by the way since it has no concept of actual words but just strings of characters (assassinate -> inate). You can use regular expressions (the convenient \b word boundary), but at the end of the day, it's all pointless anyway.

This'll do for now. 10 people in the world'll visit their site and they want things to be like some high tech... whatever. — Norman, Jan 02 '13 at 08:13

iDev Games · Answer 2 · 2018-10-20T13:56:51.340

A function for censoring swear words from a txt file

PHP:

function censor($string)
{
    if ($string)
    {
        $badwords = file_get_contents("badwords.txt");
        $badwords = explode(",", $badwords);
        $replacewith = array();
        $index = 0;
        foreach ($badwords as $value) {
            $lengthOfStars = strlen($badwords[$index]) - 2;
            $replacewith[$index] = substr($badwords[$index], 0, 1).str_repeat("*", $lengthOfStars).substr($badwords[$index], -1);
            $index++;
        }
        $newstring = str_ireplace($badwords, $replacewith, $string);
        return $newstring;
    }
}

echo censor("Some swear words to censor");

badwords.txt:

swear,words

Outcome:

Some s***r w***s to censor

Probably should make sure whatever file you store the swear words in is a file that won't be snooped by 3rd parties. EDIT: Didn't mean to submit yet. Adding on > Some DNS providers may flag your website as being 18+/NSFW if it picks up on some of those keywords. At least that appears to have happened to me a few years ago. — Joseph Kreifels II, Jun 15 '22 at 15:51

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:45

0

Using the "contains" function from this answer, you could do

$strFromSearchBox = 'duchitck you dssduckhole';
$theseWords = array('duck', 'chit', 'dsshole');

$newString = $strFromSearchBox;
while(contains($newString, $theseWords)) {
    $newString = str_replace($theseWords,'',$newString);
}

echo $newString;

edited May 23 '17 at 11:45

Community

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1

answered Jan 02 '13 at 06:22

Matt

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no need to loop. `str_replace` will replace all occurrences of the words. – Raptor Jan 02 '13 at 06:54
It might help to recheck. Someone might bypass it by expecting the collapse of a word. ffncknck becomes fnck – Joseph Kreifels II Jun 15 '22 at 16:06
@JosephKreifelsII that's what the while() loop is for. – Matt Jun 17 '22 at 01:10
@Matt I know that, I was replying to the guy who said you didn't need it. – Joseph Kreifels II Jun 20 '22 at 12:18
@JosephKreifelsII my mistake, I misread your comment. – Matt Aug 12 '22 at 01:22

Supericy · Answer 4 · 2013-01-02T07:20:46.290

0

// array of all the banned strings
$swears = array(
        "a*s",
        "t*****s"
        // add all your swear words to this array
    );

$dirtyStr = "a*s and t*****s";

// remove all the banned strings
$cleanStr = str_replace($swears, '', $dirtyStr);

echo $dirtyStr;
> a*s and t*****s

echo $cleanStr;
> and

edited Jan 02 '13 at 07:20

answered Jan 02 '13 at 06:28

Supericy

5,866
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Try censoring your words if possible. There is no real need for the dirty words for understanding the problem/solution. I would also advise adding some textual explanation in addition to your code. It usually makes a better answer. – amit Jan 02 '13 at 06:52

score 0 · Answer 5 · edited Oct 20 '18 at 13:49

0

function censor($string)
{
if ($string)
{
    //badwordsarray
    $badwords = array('some', 'swear', 'word');
    //replacearray                      
    $replace =  array('s**e', 's***r', 'w**d'); 

    $newstring = str_ireplace($badwords, $replace, $string);
    return $newstring;
}
}
 $message = $_POST['message'];
 $filteredmessage = censor($message);
 echo $filteredmessage;

edited Oct 20 '18 at 13:49

Stephen Kennedy

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answered Jan 12 '17 at 13:07

jelle woord

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Remove all bad words (swearwords) from user input string?

5 Answers5