Escaping characters inside strings

[Anon]

I have to use inside eregi_replace function, a variable field, and its value comes from the database, and it contains special characters. For example:
$AB=eregi_replace('<a +href ="'.$regs[1].'" >','<lidhje me>',$A😎;

where $regs[1] can contain scecial characters, in fact it contains "(" and ")"

How can I escape the special chars inside the variable $regs[1]?

Thanks in advance

[Anon]

i'm not positive but try looking up "urlencode"