How to Block Form Submissions Containing Profanity (Bad Words)

Would you like to block specific words from being submitted into your form? This is quite useful if you have a list of bad words you would like to filter out. The following PHP snippet will provide a helpful message to your users when they submit the form and any of your listed words appears in their submission.

Setup

To detect bad words and notify the user with a helpful message, copy the code shown below and place it into the PHP Scripts -> Form Process area of your form.

// The list of not allowed words
$not_allowed_words = [
	'dog',
	'cat',
	'elephant'
];

// The Field Name where search will be performed against the not allowed words
$field_name = 'text';

// The helpful message that will appear if bad words are found
$error_message = 'Your text contains words that are not allowed.';

// Do not edit below
foreach($not_allowed_words as $word)
{
	if (stripos($post[$field_name], $word) !== false)
	{
		throw new Exception($error_message);
	}
}

What do I need to edit in the above code?

Remember to update following parts:

• The $not_allowed_words array with the words you would like to prevent from being submitted.
• The $field_name with your input's Field Name.
• The $error_message with the error message you'd like to display to your users when they enter bad words.