What are the best PHP input sanitizing functions?

Question

I am trying to come up with a function that I can pass all my strings through to sanitize. So that the string that comes out of it will be safe for database insertion. But t

Answer 1

function sanitize($string,$dbmin,$dbmax){
$string = preg_replace('#[^a-z0-9]#i', '', $string); //useful for strict cleanse, alphanumeric here
$string = mysqli_real_escape_string($con, $string); //get ready for db
if(strlen($string) > $dbmax || strlen($string) < $dbmin){
    echo "reject_this"; exit();
    }
return $string;
}