What is the function of strip_tags() in PHP and how can it be used to remove unwanted HTML tags?

The strip_tags() function in PHP is used to remove HTML and PHP tags from a string. This can be useful when you want to sanitize user input or remove unwanted HTML tags from a text. By using strip_tags(), you can prevent potential security vulnerabilities such as cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks.

// Example of using strip_tags() to remove unwanted HTML tags
$text = "<p>This is <b>bold</b> and <i>italic</i> text.</p>";
$clean_text = strip_tags($text);

echo $clean_text; // Output: This is bold and italic text.