[Webdev] DBI->quote equivalent in PHP

[Thomas Bridge]

If I have a string of "unknown content" (eg a string gathered from user 
input) which I then want to use in a (My)SQL statement, I can escape any 
"dodgy" characters in Perl like so:

$safestring = $dbh->quote($string);
$sqlstatement = "INSERT INTO table (textfield) VALUES ($safestring)";

What's the functional equivalent of this in PHP (preferably a solution that 
works in PHP 3.0.16)?

T.
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