What is the purpose of using strip_tags in PHP and what are the potential benefits of using it?

When working with user input in PHP, it is important to sanitize the data to prevent any malicious code from being executed. One common method to achieve this is by using the strip_tags function, which removes any HTML or PHP tags from a string. This helps to prevent cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks and ensures that only plain text is displayed to the user.

// Example of using strip_tags to sanitize user input
$user_input = "<script>alert('XSS attack!');</script>";
$clean_input = strip_tags($user_input);

echo $clean_input; // Output: alert('XSS attack!');