code: def wash_html_id(dirty):
      
      import re
      if not dirty[0].isalpha():
          # we make sure that the first character is a lowercase letter
          dirty = 'i' + dirty
      non_word = re.compile(r'[^\w]+')
      return non_word.sub('', dirty)
docs: Strip non-alphabetic or newline characters from a given string.
  
      It can be used as a HTML element ID (also with jQuery and in all browsers).
  
      :param dirty: the string to wash
      :returns: the HTML ID ready string