Don’t you just hate it when you have to write very long codes such as below?

$name = mysql_real_escape_string(strip_tags($name));
$email = mysql_real_escape_string(strip_tags($email));
$address = mysql_real_escape_string(strip_tags($address));

Even if you created a function to make coding easier, it can still be a little bit tedious:

function escape_mysql($string)
{
	return mysql_real_escape_string(strip_tags($string));
}

$name = escape_mysql($name);
$email = escape_mysql($email);
$address = escape_mysql($address);

I’ll demonstrate a simple technique to make your life easier by using PHP’s references. By passing variables by reference, we can get rid of the variable assignment on the function’s return value. Here is how if should look like in the end:

function escape_mysql(&$string)
{
	$string = mysql_real_escape_string(strip_tags($string));
}

escape_mysql($name);
escape_mysql($email);
escape_mysql($address);

By passing variables by reference in our escape_mysql() function, the variable assignment no longer becomes necessary since the function will do it instead. Now that is a lot more easier to code and understand isn’t it?