sanitize_sql_orderby() – Function | Developer.WordPress.org

Ensures a string is a valid SQL ‘order by’ clause.

Description

Accepts one or more columns, with or without a sort order (ASC / DESC).
e.g. ‘column_1’, ‘column_1, column_2’, ‘column_1 ASC, column_2 DESC’ etc.

Also accepts ‘RAND()’.

Parameters

$orderbystringrequired: Order by clause to be validated.

Return

string|false Returns $orderby if valid, false otherwise.

Source

function sanitize_sql_orderby( $orderby ) {
	if ( preg_match( '/^\s*(([a-z0-9_]+|`[a-z0-9_]+`)(\s+(ASC|DESC))?\s*(,\s*(?=[a-z0-9_`])|$))+$/i', $orderby ) || preg_match( '/^\s*RAND\(\s*\)\s*$/i', $orderby ) ) {
		return $orderby;
	}
	return false;
}

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Changelog

Version	Description
2.5.1	Introduced.

User Contributed Notes

1naveengiri 3 years ago

<?php 
//code copied from Woocommerce code base shows a perfect use of this function.
$orderby           = in_array( $args['orderby'], $allowed_orders, true ) ? $args['orderby'] : 'download_log_id';
$order             = 'DESC' === strtoupper( $args['order'] ) ? 'DESC' : 'ASC';
$orderby_sql       = sanitize_sql_orderby( "{$orderby} {$order}" );
$query[]           = "ORDER BY {$orderby_sql}";
$raw_download_logs = $wpdb->get_results( implode( ' ', $query ) );
?>

sanitize_sql_orderby( string $orderby ): string|false

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