CFLib.org – Common Function Library Project

Description:
This generic UDF can be used to strip unwanted characters from strings. It can be used to eliminate non-numeric characters from phone numbers or social security numbers. It could also be used to strip out monetary or number formatting symbols for easier conversion back to a numeric value.

Return Values:
Returns a string.

Example:

<cfset Fax = "612-555-1234 (Fax)">
<cfoutput>
  Input: #Fax#<br>
  Strip all but the numbers: #StripAllBut(Fax, "1234567890")#<br>
  Strip all but letters: #StripAllBut(Fax, "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz",false)#<br>
  Strip all but (cs) letters: #StripAllBut(Fax, "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz")#<br>
</cfoutput>

Parameters:

Full UDF Source:

/**
 * Strips all characters from a string except the ones that you want to keep.
 * 
 * @param strSource      The string to strip. (Required)
 * @param strKeep      List of  characters to keep. (Required)
 * @param beCS      Boolean that determines if the match should be case sensitive. Default is true. (Optional)
 * @return Returns a string. 
 * @author Scott Jibben (scott@jibben.com) 
 * @version 1, July 2, 2002 
 */
function stripAllBut(str,strip) {
    var badList = "\";
    var okList = "\\";
    var bCS = true;

    if(arrayLen(arguments) gte 3) bCS = arguments[3];

    strip = replaceList(strip,badList,okList);
    
    if(bCS) return rereplace(str,"[^#strip#]","","all");
    else return rereplaceNoCase(str,"[^#strip#]","","all");
}