To apply the same filter to many params/keys, use array_fill_keys().<?php$data = array( 'product_id' => 'libgd<script>', 'component' => ' 10 ', 'versions' => '2.0.33', 'testscalar' => array('2', '23', '10', '12'), 'testarray' => '2',);$keys = array( 'product_id', 'component', 'versions', 'doesnotexist', 'testscalar', 'testarray');$options = array( 'filter' => FILTER_CALLBACK, 'options' => function ($value) { return trim(strip_tags($value)); },);$args = array_fill_keys($keys, $options);/* Result$args = array( 'product_id' => array( 'filter' => FILTER_CALLBACK, 'options' => function ($value) { return trim(strip_tags($value)); }, ), 'component' => array( 'filter' => FILTER_CALLBACK, 'options' => function ($value) { return trim(strip_tags($value)); }, ), 'versions' => array( 'filter' => FILTER_CALLBACK, 'options' => function ($value) { return trim(strip_tags($value)); }, ), 'doesnotexist' => array( 'filter' => FILTER_CALLBACK, 'options' => function ($value) { return trim(strip_tags($value)); }, ), 'testscalar' => array( 'filter' => FILTER_CALLBACK, 'options' => function ($value) { return trim(strip_tags($value)); }, ), 'testarray' => array( 'filter' => FILTER_CALLBACK, 'options' => function ($value) { return trim(strip_tags($value)); }, ),);*/$myinputs = filter_var_array($data, $args);var_dump($myinputs);Output:array(6) { 'product_id' => string(5) "libgd" 'component' => string(2) "10" 'versions' => string(6) "2.0.33" 'doesnotexist' => NULL 'testscalar' => array(4) { [0] => string(1) "2" [1] => string(2) "23" [2] => string(2) "10" [3] => string(2) "12" } 'testarray' => string(1) "2"}