In what ways can PHP developers implement a whitelist approach to allow only specific HTML elements and attributes in user input?

To implement a whitelist approach in PHP to allow only specific HTML elements and attributes in user input, developers can use a library like HTML Purifier. HTML Purifier is a powerful tool that sanitizes HTML input and only allows specified elements and attributes, helping to prevent XSS attacks and other security vulnerabilities.

// Include HTML Purifier library
require_once 'path/to/HTMLPurifier.auto.php';

$config = HTMLPurifier_Config::createDefault();
$config->set('HTML.Allowed', 'p,b,a[href],i,u'); // Specify allowed elements and attributes

$purifier = new HTMLPurifier($config);

// User input containing HTML
$userInput = '<p>Hello, <a href="https://example.com">click here</a>!</p>';

// Purify the user input
$cleanHtml = $purifier->purify($userInput);

echo $cleanHtml;