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The process of removing unwanted characters from an input is known as input sanitation. This involves checking and cleaning user input data to ensure that it is free from potentially harmful or unnecessary characters before it is processed by a system. Input sanitation is especially important in preventing common security vulnerabilities, such as injection attacks, where an attacker might attempt to submit malicious code through input fields. By sanitizing the input, only the allowed characters and formats are preserved, thus protecting the integrity of the system.

Input validation refers to ensuring that the data meets certain criteria (like length, type, or format) but doesn't necessarily involve modifying or cleaning the data. Data cleansing typically refers to a broader process involving detecting and correcting errors in datasets, often in a data management context, rather than focusing specifically on removing unwanted characters from inputs. Input formatting concerns structuring the data in specific formats for processing or storage, which can occur after sanitization and validation steps have been completed.