function RemoveXSS($val) {
// remove all non-printable characters. CR(0a) and LF(0b) and TAB(9) are allowed
// this prevents some character re-spacing such as <java\0script>
// note that you have to handle splits with \n, \r, and \t later since they *are* allowed in some inputs
$val = preg_replace('/([\x00-\x08][\x0b-\x0c][\x0e-\x20])/', '', $val);
// straight replacements, the user should never need these since they're normal characters
// this prevents like <IMG SRC=@avascript:alert('XSS')>
$search = 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz';
$search .= 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ';
$search .= '1234567890!@#$%^&*()';
$search .= '~`";:?+/={}[]-_|\'\\';
for ($i = 0; $i < strlen($search); $i++) {
// ;? matches the ;, which is optional
// 0{0,7} matches any padded zeros, which are optional and go up to 8 chars
// @ @ search for the hex values
$val = preg_replace('/(&#[x|X]0{0,8}'.dechex(ord($search[$i])).';?)/i', $search[$i], $val); // with a ;
// @ @ 0{0,7} matches '0' zero to seven times
$val = preg_replace('/( {0,8}'.ord($search[$i]).';?)/', $search[$i], $val); // with a ;
}