How to remove all html tags from html code

@codewitchNov 27.2021

Hello. Is there a function in PHP that removes all html tags from an external text file that is a html document?

In other words, I would like to save to a different external file only the words that a browser actually displays.

Is there a quick solution already built in eg PHP or do I have to code a cycle going through the text file considering all characters between every > and < only?

Thank you.

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PHP

13 Comments(s) _↴

@ginerjmNov 27.2021 — #How about this: https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.strip-tags.php

@codewitchauthorNov 27.2021 — #Thank you for your reply.

The strip_tags() function is indeed a solution. The only problem is that it also returns the css sheet written in the html code. But with an external stylesheet it works exactly as desired.

@ginerjmNov 27.2021 — #HTH

@NogDogNov 27.2021 — #You might have issues with <script>/* Javascript code here */</script>, too? If you need to eliminate non-text elements, you might need to leverage either the [DOM Extension](https://www.php.net/manual/en/book.dom.php) and/or play around with regexes in [preg_replace()](https://www.php.net/preg_replace())

@codewitchauthorNov 28.2021 — #Hello NogDog. Thank you for your post. I have found a way how to get rid of both the css code and the script issue:

<i>
 </i>&lt;?php
 
 //this code returns all words located in the body tag of the html document
 
 $myfile = fopen("file.htm", "r") or die("Unable to open file.");
 $s=fread($myfile,filesize("file.htm"));
 fclose($myfile);
 
 $s=explode("&lt;/head&gt;",$s)[1];
 
 $n1=substr_count($s, '&lt;/script&gt;');
 $n2=substr_count($s, '&lt;/SCRIPT&gt;');
 
 $t7='';
 
 for($i=1;$i&lt;=$n1;$i++){
 
 <i>    </i>$t7.=explode("&lt;script",$s)[0];
 <i>    </i>$s=explode("&lt;/script&gt;",$s)[1];
 
 }
 
 $s=$t7;
 $t7='';
 
 for($i=1;$i&lt;=$n2;$i++){
 
 <i>    </i>$t7.=explode("&lt;SCRIPT",$s)[0];
 <i>    </i>$s=explode("&lt;/SCRIPT&gt;",$s)[1];
 
 }
 
 
 echo strip_tags($t7);
 
 ?&gt;

There is written <script only, because it can be longer: <script type="text/javascript">

Hopefully it is all issues to deal with here.

@EpicblueNov 28.2021 — #The strip_tags() work is to be sure an answer. The main issue is that it likewise returns the css sheet written in the html code. Yet, with an outside template it works precisely as wanted.

@SempervivumNov 28.2021 — #Not being an expert for DOMDocument I figured out by some research and try and error that the property textContent of a DOM node contains all the text inside including nested elements and excluding script and style tags. Taking advantage of this, getting the text grows fairly simple:

``<i>
 </i>$doc = new DOMDocument();
 $doc-&gt;loadhtmlfile('my-test-document.html', LIBXML_NOWARNING | LIBXML_NOERROR);
 $body = $doc-&gt;getElementsByTagName('body');
 
 foreach ($body as $item) {
 echo $item-&gt;textContent;
 }<i>
 </i>`</CODE>
 Feel free to add some checking that only one body exists.<br/>
 Tested with this HTML I had at hand:
 <CODE>`<i>
 </i>&lt;!DOCTYPE html&gt;
 &lt;html lang="en"&gt;
 
 &lt;head&gt;
 &lt;meta charset="UTF-8"&gt;
 &lt;meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"&gt;
 &lt;title&gt;Nested Test Layout&lt;/title&gt;
 &lt;/head&gt;
 
 &lt;body&gt;
 &lt;style&gt;
 html,
 body {
 height: 100%;
 margin: 0em;
 padding: 0em;
 }
 
 body {
 display: flex;
 }
 
 section#left {
 flex-grow: 2;
 background-color: darkkhaki;
 align-items: stretch;
 }
 
 section#right {
 display: flex;
 flex-direction: column;
 flex-grow: 3;
 }
 
 #right div {
 padding: 0em;
 margin: 0em;
 
 }
 
 section#right div:first-child {
 background-color: darkorange;
 flex: 3;
 }
 
 section#right div:nth-child(3) {
 background-color: darkturquoise;
 flex: 3;
 
 }
 
 section#right div:nth-child(4) {
 background-color: dodgerblue;
 flex: 1;
 }
 
 section#right div:nth-child(4) p {
 margin: 0em;
 }
 
 section#right .row {
 display: flex;
 flex-direction: row;
 background-color: darkred;
 flex: 3;
 }
 
 section#right .row article {
 flex: 3;
 border: 1px solid black;
 }
 &lt;/style&gt;
 &lt;section id="left"&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Left&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;/section&gt;
 &lt;section id="right"&gt;
 &lt;div&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Right - First&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;/div&gt;
 &lt;div class="row"&gt;
 &lt;article&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Lorem Ipsum&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;/article&gt;
 &lt;article&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Lorem Ipsum&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;/article&gt;
 &lt;article&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Lorem Ipsum&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;/article&gt;
 &lt;/div&gt;
 &lt;div&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Right - Third&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;/div&gt;
 &lt;div&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Right - Fourth&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;/div&gt;
 &lt;/section&gt;
 &lt;script&gt;
 // some javascript here
 &lt;/script&gt;
 &lt;/body&gt;
 
 &lt;/html&gt;<i>
 </i>``

Although this is not valid HTML I placed the style inside the body in order to verify that it's not included in the text.

@codewitchauthorNov 29.2021 — #Hello Sempervivum. The code you posted does not deal with the script tags. In addition it deleted content of a div "I am a text to be displayed.". I will post results. Code:

<i>
 </i>&lt;?php
 
 //code credit: Sempervivum
 
 $doc = new DOMDocument();
 $doc-&gt;loadhtmlfile('file.htm', LIBXML_NOWARNING | LIBXML_NOERROR);
 $body = $doc-&gt;getElementsByTagName('body');
 
 foreach ($body as $item) {
 echo $item-&gt;textContent;
 }
 
 ?&gt;

My file.htm:

<i>
 </i>&lt;!DOCTYPE html&gt;
 &lt;html lang="en"&gt;
 &lt;head&gt;
 &lt;meta charset="utf-8"/&gt;
 &lt;meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0"&gt;
 &lt;title&gt;hey I am a title&lt;/title&gt;
 &lt;link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css"&gt;
 &lt;style&gt;
 h1{color: blue;}
 
 <i>    </i>&lt;/style&gt;
 &lt;/head&gt;
 &lt;body class="code0"&gt;
 
 
 &lt;div style="background-color: red; width: 100%; "&gt;
 I am a text to be displayed.
 &lt;/div&gt;
 
 
 &lt;div style="background-color: green; width: 100%; "&gt;
 
 &lt;form action="file.php"&gt;
 &lt;center&gt;
     &lt;span style="width: 50px; height: 100%; text-align: center; " class=vv&gt;aaa&lt;/span&gt;
 &lt;input type="text" name="c2" style="width: 79%; font-size:25pt;"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;
     &lt;span style="width: 50px; height: 100%; text-align: center; " class=vv&gt;&lt;input type="submit" value="send" class=c7&gt;&lt;/span&gt;
 &lt;/center&gt;
 &lt;/form&gt;
 
 &lt;/div&gt;
 
 
 
 &lt;form action="file.php"&gt;
 &lt;span class="form-container"&gt;
 &lt;input type="text"  name="c2" style="width: 79%; font-size:25pt;"&gt;
 &lt;input type="submit" value="send" style="position: relative; left: 15px"&gt;
 &lt;/span&gt;
 &lt;/form&gt;
 
 
 Hey I am a cool text.
 
 
 
 
 
 &lt;div class="mycontainer"&gt;
 &lt;div class="my1"&gt;
 <br/>
 <i>    </i>      &lt;!-- here begins the my1 content --&gt;
 <i>    </i> 
 <i>    </i> 
 <i>    </i>      aaa
 <i>    </i> 
 <i>    </i> 
 <i>    </i>      &lt;!-- here ends the my1 content --&gt;
 <i>    </i> 
 <i>    </i>  &lt;/div&gt;
 <i>    </i>  &lt;div class="my2"&gt;
 <i>    </i> 
 <i>    </i>      &lt;!-- here begins the my2 content --&gt;
 <i>    </i> 
 <i>    </i> 
 <i>    </i>      bbb
 <i>    </i> 
 <i>    </i> 
 <i>    </i>      &lt;!-- here ends the my2 content --&gt;
 
 <i>    </i>  &lt;/div&gt;
 <i>    </i>   &lt;div class="my3"&gt;
 <i>    </i> 
 <i>    </i>      &lt;!-- here begins the my3 content --&gt;
 <i>    </i> 
 <i>    </i> 
 <i>    </i>      ccc
 <i>    </i> 
 <i>    </i> 
 <i>    </i>      &lt;!-- here ends the my3 content --&gt;
 
 <i>    </i>  &lt;/div&gt;
 <i>    </i>  &lt;div class="my4"&gt;
 <i>    </i> 
 <i>    </i>      &lt;!-- here begins the my4 content --&gt;
 <i>    </i> 
 <i>    </i> 
 <i>    </i>      ddd
 <i>    </i> 
 <i>    </i> 
 <i>    </i>      &lt;!-- here ends the my4 content --&gt;
 
 <i>    </i>  &lt;/div&gt;
 &lt;/div&gt;
 
 I am a text to be included.
 
 &lt;script&gt;I am a text not to be included..&lt;/script&gt;
 
 &lt;script&gt;I am a text not to be included..&lt;/script&gt;
 
 &lt;SCRIPT&gt;I am a text not to be included..&lt;/SCRIPT&gt;
 
 
 
 
 &lt;/body&gt;
 &lt;/html&gt;

output:

<i>
 </i>           aaa     Hey I am a cool text. aaa bbb ccc ddd I am a text to be included. I am a text not to be included.. I am a text not to be included.. I am a text not to be included..×

@SempervivumNov 29.2021 — #Ah, so sorry, I retested this and noticed that I had some trouble with the versions of my test document: I used the wrong one which did not contain script tags.

@NogDogNov 29.2021 — #Brute force approach:

[code=php]
 $doc = new DOMDocument();
 $doc->loadhtmlfile(__DIR__.'/file.htm', LIBXML_NOWARNING | LIBXML_NOERROR);
 $scripts = $doc->getElementsByTagName('script');
 foreach($scripts as $script) {
 $script->textContent = '';
 }
 $body = $doc->getElementsByTagName('body');
 foreach ($body as $item) {
 echo preg_replace('/ns+/', "n", $item->textContent);
 }
 [/code]

Output:

[code=text]
 I am a text to be displayed.
 aaa
 Hey I am a cool text.
 aaa
 bbb
 ccc
 ddd
 I am a text to be included.
 [/code]

@SempervivumNov 29.2021 — #That's fine, a different approach I coded right now is removing the script nodes first:

``<i>
 </i>$doc = new DOMDocument();
 $doc-&gt;loadhtmlfile('thread777-layout-stef-codewitch.html', LIBXML_NOWARNING | LIBXML_NOERROR);
 $body = $doc-&gt;getElementsByTagName('body');
 
 // remove script nodes first:
 $scriptNodes = $doc-&gt;getElementsByTagName('script');
 for ($i = $scriptNodes-&gt;length; --$i &gt;= 0;) {
 $node = $scriptNodes[$i];
 $node-&gt;parentNode-&gt;removeChild($node);
 }
 
 foreach ($body as $item) {
 // textContent of the body will include nested elements:
 echo $item-&gt;textContent;
 }<i>
 </i>``

@NogDogNov 29.2021 — #> @Sempervivum#1639988

That's probably cleaner. I was too impatient to figure out how to get removeChild() to work. :)

@codewitchauthorNov 30.2021 — #@NogDog @Sempervivum: Thank you both for your replies.

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