sub sanitize($) {
  #*
  # to remove HTML from a string
  #*
  my ($s) = @_; # a string of text
  my $rv = 0;

  if ($s) {
    my $nohtml = HTML::Restrict->new();
    my $processed = $nohtml->process($s);
    if ($processed ne $s) { $rv = $processed; } else { $rv = $s; }
  }

  return $rv;
  #usage: my $sanitized = sanitize($input);
}