What exactly does the PHP function “test_input()” do?

Question

I know I will be voted down for this, but I need to ask. What does the code below mean? Specifically, I am confused by

if (empty($_POST[\"comment\"])) { $comme         


        

Answer 1

test_input() is a user - defined function used by w3schools:

function test_input($data) {
    $data = trim($data);
    $data = stripslashes($data);
    $data = htmlspecialchars($data);
    return $data;
}

For example:

• trim($data) will strip unnecessary characters (extra space, tab, newline) from the user input data (with the PHP trim() function).
• stripslashes($data) will remove backslashes () from the user input data (with the PHP stripslashes() function).
• htmlspecialchars($data) converts special characters to HTML entities.
  • (If the user inputs < and >, htmlspecialchars() will translate it to < and >).