Beginner's Approach to String Cleanup

				
'**************************************
' Name: Beginner's Approach to String Cleanup
' Description:Take an ordinary, dirty string and return a clean, shiny string without any symbols that your SQL server, script or whatever might choke on!
' By: Eric Brophy
'
'This code is copyrighted and has' limited warranties.Please see http://www.Planet-Source-Code.com/vb/scripts/ShowCode.asp?txtCodeId=9580&lngWId=4'for details.'**************************************

function cleanUp(sDirty)
Dim i,n 'iterative variables
Dim sCur,sClean,iLen
Dim sOrig(),sLower(),sUpper() 'arrays to hold the broken-down string in its various states
'MODIFY THIS STRING TO ALLOW SPECIFIC SYMBOLS TO BE USED
Const sAllow = "`~!@#$^*()-_=+[]{}|\: " 
'MODIFY THIS STRING TO ALLOW SPECIFIC SYMBOLS TO BE USED
if trim(sDirty) = "" then
'if the string is empty or space-padded, don't bother with it
 cleanUp = ""
 exit function
end if
iLen = len(sDirty) 
'determine length of string
Redim sOrig(iLen): Redim sLower(iLen): Redim sUpper(iLen) 
'make the arrays the correct size (0th element will be included but not used)
for i = 1 to iLen
'populate the arrays
 sCur = mid(sDirty,i,1)
 'grab one character from position i in sDirty
 sOrig(i) = sCur
 sLower(i) = lcase(sCur)
 sUpper(i) = ucase(sCur)
next
for n = 1 to iLen
 if sLower(n) = sUpper(n) then 
 'if there was no change in the character by changing their case, which is to say that it's not a letter
 if instr(1,sAllow,sOrig(n)) then 
 'if the character exists in the sAllow const defined above ...
sClean = sClean & sOrig(n) 
 elseif isNumeric(sOrig(n)) then
 '... or if the character is numeric ...
sClean = sClean & sOrig(n)
'...then we'll still add it to the finished product.
 end if
 'if neither of those conditions are met, it will simply ignore that character and move on
 else
 'if the character did change when changing case, which means that it is a letter ...
 sClean = sClean & sOrig(n)
 end if
next
cleanUp = sClean
'return the cleaned-up string
end function