## Runtime Configuration

The behaviour of these functions is affected by settings in php.ini.

Filter Configuration Options
Name | Default | Changeable | Changelog
--- | --- | --- | ---
filter.default | "unsafe_raw" | PHP_INI_PERDIR | PHP_INI_ALL in filter <= 0.9.4. Available since PHP 5.2.0.
filter.default_flags | NULL | PHP_INI_PERDIR | PHP_INI_ALL in filter <= 0.9.4. Available since PHP 5.2.0.

For further details and definitions of the PHP_INI_* modes, see the Where a configuration setting may be set.

Here's a short explanation of the configuration directives.

`filter.default` string

  Filter all $_GET, $_POST, $_COOKIE, $_REQUEST and $_SERVER data by this filter. Original data can be accessed through filter_input().

  Accepts the name of the filter you like to use by default. See the existing filter list for the list of the filter names.

  > Note:

  > Be careful about the default flags for the default filters. You should explicitly set them to the value you want. For example, to configure the default filter to behave exactly like htmlspecialchars() you need to set them default flags to 0 as shown below.

  > Example #1 Configuring the default filter to act like htmlspecialchars

  > `filter.default = full_special_chars
  > filter.default_flags = 0`

`filter.default_flags` integer

  Default flags to apply when the default filter is set. This is set to `FILTER_FLAG_NO_ENCODE_QUOTES` by default for backwards compatibility reasons. See the flag list for the list of all the flag names.