Why use “if (!function_exists(‘…”

Checking to see if built in WordPress functions exist before calling them is for backward compatibility which IMHO is not needed.

So if you see if ( function_exists( 'register_nav_menus' ) ) the theme author is supporting versions earlier than 3.0.

You still sometimes see
 if ( function_exists( 'dynamic_sidebar' ) ) 
Why? I couldn’t tell you because dynamic_sidebar was introduced in 2.2.

Another reason to use it is to make your theme or plugin pluggable. A pluggable function is one that can be overridden in a child theme or another plugin.

This is done on the definition not the call and you use the ! operator to make sure it doesn’t already exist before you define it.

if ( ! function_exists( 'my_awesome_function' ) ) {
/**
 * My Awesome function is awesome
 *
 * @param array $args
 * @return array
 */
function my_awesome_function( $args ) {
  //function stuff
  return array();
  }
}

When this is done a child theme or other plugin can override that function with there own.

source: https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/a/111318

Clean Text Function

I needed a way to remove non-printing and irregular ascii character. This is helpfull when controlling user name formatting or comparing two strings. The output will be the cleaned up string based on the options.

Usage: $result=text_clean(<text to be reviewed>,<optional variable>);

/*
	this function will strip all non-printing and 
	irregular ascii symbols and repetitive spaces.  
	
	Option 0: (default) leaves spaces; 
	Option 1: replaces spaces with underscores; 
	Option 2: removes all spaces.
	Option 3: removes all spaces, underscores, converts to lowercase
	
*/

function text_clean($submitted,$option=0){

	//reduces multiple spaces to single
	$excess_spaces=preg_replace('/\s\s+/', ' ',$submitted);
	
	//removes all non_printing/extended ascii characters
	$non_ascii=preg_replace('/[^\da-z ]/i', '', $excess_spaces);

	//Truncates the leading and ending spaces
	$trim_spaces=trim($non_ascii);
	
	$final=$trim_spaces;
	
	if ($option==1){
		$final=preg_replace('/\s/', '_',$trim_spaces);
	}
	if ($option==2){
		$final=preg_replace('/\s/', '',$trim_spaces);
	}
	if ($option==3){
		
		$final=str_replace('_','',$trim_spaces);
		$final=preg_replace('/\s/', '',$final);
		$final=strtolower($final);
		
	}
	return	$final;

	}