Censoring

Profanity::censor returns the text with every match masked. Everything else, including spacing, punctuation and emoji, is left as it was.

use NoNepaliProfanity\Profanity;

Profanity::censor('you muji');             // 'you ****'
Profanity::censor('F.U.C.K this Sh1t!');   // '******* this ****!'
Profanity::censor('मुजीको क्लास');          // '*** क्लास'
Profanity::censor('Great teacher!');       // 'Great teacher!'

Check and censor in one pass

To find out whether text has profanity and get a censored copy, use Profanity::check. It scans the text once and returns a result you can read and then censor, so you don't pay for a second scan:

$result = Profanity::check('you muji, F.U.C.K');

$result->hasProfanity;   // true
$result->words;          // ['muji', 'fuck']
$result->censor();       // 'you ****, *******'

Because censor() is a method on the result, you can chain it:

Profanity::check('you muji')->censor();                  // 'you ****'
Profanity::check('you muji')->censor(['mask' => '#']);   // 'you ####'

A common pattern is to save the censored text and flag the original for a moderator:

$result = Profanity::check($comment['body']);

$insert = $pdo->prepare('INSERT INTO comments (body, flagged, flagged_words) VALUES (?, ?, ?)');
$insert->execute([$result->censor(), (int) $result->hasProfanity, implode(',', $result->words)]);

Calling containsProfanity($text) and then censor($text) gives the same result, but scans the text twice.

Change the mask

mask sets the character used in place of each character of a match. The default is *.

Profanity::censor('you muji', ['mask' => '#']);   // 'you ####'
Profanity::censor('you muji', ['mask' => '•']);   // 'you ••••'

Custom replacements

replace receives each match and returns the text to put in its place. It takes precedence over mask.

use NoNepaliProfanity\ProfanityMatch;

// A fixed label
Profanity::censor('you muji', ['replace' => fn (ProfanityMatch $m) => '[censored]']);
// 'you [censored]'

// Keep the first letter
Profanity::censor('you muji', ['replace' => fn (ProfanityMatch $m) => mb_substr($m->text, 0, 1) . str_repeat('*', mb_strlen($m->text) - 1)]);
// 'you m***'

// Grawlix
Profanity::censor('you muji', ['replace' => fn (ProfanityMatch $m) => mb_substr(str_repeat('@#$%&!', mb_strlen($m->text)), 0, mb_strlen($m->text))]);
// 'you @#$%'

// Wrap it for your UI instead of hiding it
Profanity::censor('you muji', ['replace' => fn (ProfanityMatch $m) => "<mark>{$m->text}</mark>"]);
// 'you <mark>muji</mark>'

The match object is the same as the one returned by findProfanityMatches:

Property	Example	Meaning
text	'F.U.C.K'	Exactly what the user typed.
normalized	'fuck'	The normalized form that matched.
start	0	Start index in the input, in characters.
end	7	End index in the input, exclusive.

Escape HTML

If the output goes into HTML, escape the text first. A replace function that returns markup, like the <mark> example above, only receives the matched text, not the rest of the input.

With filter options

censor and check accept the same languages and strictness options as every other method:

Profanity::censor('fuck muji', ['languages' => ['romanized']]);          // 'fuck ****'
Profanity::censor('you idiot', ['strictness' => 'lenient']);             // 'you idiot'
Profanity::check('you idiot', ['strictness' => 'lenient'])->censor();    // 'you idiot'

A filter from createFilter has check and censor too:

$filter = Profanity::createFilter(['languages' => ['romanized', 'devanagari']]);

$filter->censor('fuck muji');          // 'fuck ****'
$filter->check('मुजी')->censor();      // '**'

What gets masked

• Exactly the characters the user typed. Positions are traced back through normalization, so leetspeak (Sh1t), ! for i (sh!!t), full-width letters (ＦＵＣＫ) and zero-width characters are masked in full.
• Spelled-out words, dots included. F.U.C.K becomes *******.
• One mask character per visible character. Devanagari is counted by what you see, not by byte or code point, so मुजी becomes **, not ****.
• Whitespace inside a phrase is kept. sasto manche becomes ***** ******.
• Overlapping matches are merged. chaak ko pwal is a phrase that contains the word chaak, and it's masked once, as ***** ** ****.
• Postpositions are masked with the word. mujiko becomes ******, because the filter reads it as one word.