Stripping Invisible Characters before passing to DB

To handle the issue of invisible characters being posted by users and causing database errors, you can create a middleware in Laravel to sanitize the input before it reaches your database. This way, you can globally sanitize the input and remove any unwanted characters.

Here's a step-by-step solution:

1. Create a Middleware: First, create a new middleware using the Artisan command:

   php artisan make:middleware SanitizeInput
   

2. Implement the Middleware: Open the newly created middleware file located at app/Http/Middleware/SanitizeInput.php and implement the logic to remove invisible characters.

   <?php
   
   namespace App\Http\Middleware;
   
   use Closure;
   use Illuminate\Http\Request;
   
   class SanitizeInput
   {
       /**
        * Handle an incoming request.
        *
        * @param  \Illuminate\Http\Request  $request
        * @param  \Closure  $next
        * @return mixed
        */
       public function handle(Request $request, Closure $next)
       {
           $input = $request->all();
   
           array_walk_recursive($input, function (&$input) {
               // Remove invisible characters
               $input = preg_replace('/[\x{200B}-\x{200D}\x{FEFF}]/u', '', $input);
           });
   
           $request->merge($input);
   
           return $next($request);
       }
   }
   

3. Register the Middleware: Register the middleware in your app/Http/Kernel.php file. You can add it to the global middleware stack or to a specific group (e.g., web or api).

   protected $middleware = [
       // Other middleware
       \App\Http\Middleware\SanitizeInput::class,
   ];
   

4. Test the Middleware: Ensure that the middleware is working correctly by testing your application. Any input containing invisible characters should now be sanitized before being processed by your application and stored in the database.

This approach ensures that all incoming requests are sanitized globally, preventing the issue of invisible characters causing database errors.