Title: WP_Customize_Widgets::sanitize_sidebar_widgets
Published: April 25, 2014
Last modified: May 20, 2026

---

# WP_Customize_Widgets::sanitize_sidebar_widgets( string[] $widget_ids ): string[]

## In this article

 * [Description](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/classes/wp_customize_widgets/sanitize_sidebar_widgets/?output_format=md#description)
 * [Parameters](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/classes/wp_customize_widgets/sanitize_sidebar_widgets/?output_format=md#parameters)
 * [Return](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/classes/wp_customize_widgets/sanitize_sidebar_widgets/?output_format=md#return)
 * [Source](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/classes/wp_customize_widgets/sanitize_sidebar_widgets/?output_format=md#source)
 * [Changelog](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/classes/wp_customize_widgets/sanitize_sidebar_widgets/?output_format=md#changelog)

[ Back to top](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/classes/wp_customize_widgets/sanitize_sidebar_widgets/?output_format=md#wp--skip-link--target)

Ensures sidebar widget arrays only ever contain widget IDS.

## 󠀁[Description](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/classes/wp_customize_widgets/sanitize_sidebar_widgets/?output_format=md#description)󠁿

Used as the ‘sanitize_callback’ for each $sidebars_widgets setting.

## 󠀁[Parameters](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/classes/wp_customize_widgets/sanitize_sidebar_widgets/?output_format=md#parameters)󠁿

 `$widget_ids`string[]required

Array of widget IDs.

## 󠀁[Return](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/classes/wp_customize_widgets/sanitize_sidebar_widgets/?output_format=md#return)󠁿

 string[] Array of sanitized widget IDs.

## 󠀁[Source](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/classes/wp_customize_widgets/sanitize_sidebar_widgets/?output_format=md#source)󠁿

    ```php
    public function sanitize_sidebar_widgets( $widget_ids ) {
    	$widget_ids           = array_map( 'strval', (array) $widget_ids );
    	$sanitized_widget_ids = array();
    	foreach ( $widget_ids as $widget_id ) {
    		$sanitized_widget_ids[] = preg_replace( '/[^a-z0-9_\-]/', '', $widget_id );
    	}
    	return $sanitized_widget_ids;
    }
    ```

[View all references](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/files/wp-includes/class-wp-customize-widgets.php/)
[View on Trac](https://core.trac.wordpress.org/browser/tags/7.0/src/wp-includes/class-wp-customize-widgets.php#L1043)
[View on GitHub](https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-develop/blob/7.0/src/wp-includes/class-wp-customize-widgets.php#L1043-L1050)

## 󠀁[Changelog](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/classes/wp_customize_widgets/sanitize_sidebar_widgets/?output_format=md#changelog)󠁿

| Version | Description | 
| [3.9.0](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/since/3.9.0/) | Introduced. |

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