Function to sanitize user input, and search box is now sanitized.

2 files changed, 40 insertions, 19 deletions

diff --git a/food_search.php b/food_search.php
index 73bba79..517a930 100644
--- a/food_search.php
+++ b/food_search.php
@@ -12,18 +12,20 @@
 # and libraries are included
 require("config.php");
 
-# don't go any farther if the user didn't enter any search string
+# Don't go any farther if the user didn't enter any search string
 # as such a query could return thousands and thousands of records
 # and be more or less useless and a resource killer ... there is already
 # javascript validation on this field, but this is here as a safety net
 $searchString = trim($_REQUEST['searchString']);
 if ( empty($searchString) ) {
+	print_r($_REQUEST); exit;
 	$_SESSION['systemMsg'] = "<span class='msgError'>Please enter at least one search word.</span>";
 	header("Location: {$config->_rootUri}/");
 	exit;
 }
 
-# let's implement the PRG (Post->Redirect->Get) method here so that
+
+# Let's implement the PRG (Post->Redirect->Get) method here so that
 # users can use the back button freely without browser warnings
 if ( isset($_POST['doSearch']) ) {
 	# build the query string
@@ -50,9 +52,8 @@ if (
 	exit;
 }
 
-# trim search string of any whitespace
-$searchString = trim($_GET['searchString']);
-
+# Sanitize $searchString
+$searchString = sanitizeUserInput($_GET['searchString']);
 
 # assign the vars to the smarty template
 # these will simply be used to remind the user of how they searched
diff --git a/lib/standard.lib.php b/lib/standard.lib.php
index 503052e..e338f67 100644
--- a/lib/standard.lib.php
+++ b/lib/standard.lib.php
@@ -1,8 +1,10 @@
 <?php
 
-# this function will simply initialize a variable to
-# an empty string unless it already has a value, in
-# which case it will simply return the existing value
+/**
+ * This function will simply initialize a variable to
+ * an empty string unless it already has a value, in
+ * which case it will simply return the existing value
+ */
 function initVar($var) {
 	
 	$var = empty($var) ? "" : $var;
@@ -10,13 +12,15 @@ function initVar($var) {
 
 }
 
-# this function will initialize a variable to an empty
-# string unless it already has a value, in which case
-# it will simply return the existing value ... the only
-# diff. between this function and initVar() is that this
-# fuction encodes HTML special characters and then echos
-# the variable ... useful for initializing and printing
-# a variable all in one step
+/**
+ * This function will initialize a variable to an empty
+ * string unless it already has a value, in which case
+ * it will simply return the existing value ... the only
+ * diff. between this function and initVar() is that this
+ * fuction encodes HTML special characters and then echos
+ * the variable ... useful for initializing and printing
+ * a variable all in one step
+ */
 function printVar($var) {
 	
 	$var = empty($var) ? "" : htmlspecialchars($var,ENT_QUOTES);
@@ -25,10 +29,12 @@ function printVar($var) {
 
 }
 
-# create pagination, including a page navigation bar.  the
-# output should be fairly generic, enclosed in a div with 
-# a css class of 'paginationNav', and more or less suitable
-# to be dropped into just about any page.
+/**
+ * Create pagination, including a page navigation bar.  the
+ * output should be fairly generic, enclosed in a div with 
+ * css class of 'paginationNav', and more or less suitable
+ * to be dropped into just about any page.
+ */
 function getPagination($page = 1, $pageOffset, $uri , $paginationSql) {
 
 	global $config, $db;
@@ -109,4 +115,18 @@ HTML;
 
 }
 
+/**
+ * Sanitize user form input, which at the moment means:
+ * - trim any leading and trailing whitespace
+ * - convert HTML special chars to HTML entities
+ */
+function sanitizeUserInput($input) {
+
+	$output = trim($input);
+	$output = htmlspecialchars($output);
+
+	return $output;
+
+}
+
 ?>