Generating secure passwords in PHP

generatePassword.php

<?php
// usage: $newpassword = generatePassword(12); // for a 12-char password, upper/lower/numbers.
// functions that use rand() or mt_rand() are not secure according to the PHP manual.
function getRandomBytes($nbBytes = 32)
{
    $bytes = openssl_random_pseudo_bytes($nbBytes, $strong);
    if (false !== $bytes && true === $strong) {
        return $bytes;
    }
    else {
        throw new \Exception("Unable to generate secure token from OpenSSL.");
    }
}
function generatePassword($length){
    return substr(preg_replace("/[^a-zA-Z0-9]/", "", base64_encode(getRandomBytes($length+1))),0,$length);
}

$pass = generatePassword(16);
echo $pass;