<?php

function just_clean($string)
{
// Replace other special chars
$specialCharacters = array(
'#' => '',
'$' => '',
'%' => '',
'&' => '',
'@' => '',
'.' => '',
'€' => '',
'+' => '',
'=' => '',
'§' => '',
'\\' => '',
'/' => '',
);</code>

while (list($character, $replacement) = each($specialCharacters)) {
$string = str_replace($character, '-' . $replacement . '-', $string);
}

$string = strtr($string,
"ÀÁÂÃÄÅ� áâãäåÒÓÔÕÖØòóôõöøÈÉÊËèéêëÇçÌÍÎÏìíîïÙÚÛÜùúûüÿÑñ",
"AAAAAAaaaaaaOOOOOOooooooEEEEeeeeCcIIIIiiiiUUUUuuuuyNn"
);

// Remove all remaining other unknown characters
$string = preg_replace('/[^a-zA-Z0-9\-]/', ' ', $string);
$string = preg_replace('/^[\-]+/', '', $string);
$string = preg_replace('/[\-]+$/', '', $string);
$string = preg_replace('/[\-]{2,}/', ' ', $string);

return $string;
}


?>

http://www.bala-krishna.com/how-to-clean-special-characters-from-php-string

Clean Special Characters

PHP