Yes, it's a leap alright...we only have a little snippet of code from the script. does the code perform SQL or system calls, who knows. This sub-thread of the main idea is still relevant: it guards against code injection. And the main idea (reject bad input alltogether) is better than a fix the input approach. People that input quotes and other funny characters into input boxes (cgi) are generally up to no good anyway. When was the last time you entered quotes in a cgi form? With the "fix the input" approach, the shortcoming of the program will be found sooner rather than later...and if it's not code injection that happens, than at least it will possibly break the code. Therefore "reject all but GOOD input" should be an idiom that coders (coders != software designers) might like to learn. I'm not getting on a pedestal either...but I would like to impart the few good rules I have learnt. It's not all just about the code or to see how far you can get with a regex.