How to strip styles embedded within html tags?

[Steve]

Hi,
I'm a complete PHP n00b slowly finding my way around
I'm using the following function that I found on php.net to strip
out html and return only the text. It works well except for when
you find styles embedded within the tags
eg: <h3 id="pageName">Have a great day!! </h3>
This throws an error, whereas
<h3 >Thank you for your purchase! </h3works like a charm.
It also falls over when crappy code has <h3>&nbsp;</h3between
the tags.

What do I need to add to the below function to get it to work on
cases like above?
regards,
Steve

The function is:

function html2txt($txt){
$search = array('@<script[^>]*?>.*?</script>@si', // Strip out
javascript
'@<[\/\!]*?[^<>]*?>@si', // Strip out
HTML tags
'@<style[^>]*?>.*?</style>@siU', // Strip style
tags properly
'@<![\s\S]*?--[ \t\n\r]*>@', // Strip
multi-line comments including CDATA
"@</?[^>]*>*@"
);
$text = preg_replace($search, '', $txt);
return $text;
}

[Kimmo Laine]

"Steve" <be*******@NOSPAM.gmail.comwrote in message
news:4b*******************@fe78.usenetserver.com.. .

Hi,
I'm a complete PHP n00b slowly finding my way around
I'm using the following function that I found on php.net to strip out html
and return only the text.

You know, there is a built-in function strip_tags() that does exactly that,
so if your only goal is to strip tags, you might just as well use that. If
you're just trying to learn php and regex, then you should go the hard way
and write the strip function by yourself. :)

--
"Ohjelmoija on organismi joka muuttaa kofeiinia koodiksi" - lpk
http://outolempi.net/ahdistus/ - Satunnaisesti päivittyvä nettisarjis
sp**@outolempi.net | rot13(xv***@bhgbyrzcv.arg)

[Steve]

"Kimmo Laine" <sp**@outolempi.netwrote in message
news:tA*****************@reader1.news.jippii.net.. .

"Steve" <be*******@NOSPAM.gmail.comwrote in message
news:4b*******************@fe78.usenetserver.com.. .

>Hi,
I'm a complete PHP n00b slowly finding my way around
I'm using the following function that I found on php.net to
strip out html and return only the text.

You know, there is a built-in function strip_tags() that does
exactly that, so if your only goal is to strip tags, you might
just as well use that. If you're just trying to learn php and
regex, then you should go the hard way and write the strip
function by yourself. :)

--
"Ohjelmoija on organismi joka muuttaa kofeiinia
koodiksi" - lpk
http://outolempi.net/ahdistus/ - Satunnaisesti päivittyvä
nettisarjis
sp**@outolempi.net | rot13(xv***@bhgbyrzcv.arg)

Hi,
Yes, but strip_tags doesn't address my problem does it? I was
using it before I came across that faction. As for learning
regex, I agree, but right now I need to be able to do this ASAP
:)
cheers

[Rik]

Steve wrote:

"Kimmo Laine" <sp**@outolempi.netwrote in message
news:tA*****************@reader1.news.jippii.net.. .

>"Steve" <be*******@NOSPAM.gmail.comwrote in message
news:4b*******************@fe78.usenetserver.com. ..

>>Hi,
I'm a complete PHP n00b slowly finding my way around
I'm using the following function that I found on php.net to
strip out html and return only the text.

You know, there is a built-in function strip_tags() that does
exactly that, so if your only goal is to strip tags, you might
just as well use that. If you're just trying to learn php and
regex, then you should go the hard way and write the strip
function by yourself. :)

>

Hi,
Yes, but strip_tags doesn't address my problem does it? I was
using it before I came across that faction. As for learning
regex, I agree, but right now I need to be able to do this ASAP
:)

If you just simply want to strip ALL html tags:
preg_replace('/<[^>]*>/s','',$html);

--
Grtz,

Rik Wasmus

[John Dunlop]

Steve:

I'm using the following function that I found on php.net to strip
out html and return only the text.

PHP has a built-in function strip_tags():

http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.strip-tags.php

But strip_tags() doesn't really do what it says on the tin. It doesn't
know what is and what isn't a tag, and it commits the cardinal sin of
lumping other markup constructs - e.g., comment declarations - under
the rubric of "tag". Neither does it know about the minutiae of HTML,
such as markup minimisation. Whatever looks like a tag, *is* a tag in
its eyes, and vice versa. Add to the mix tag-soup and non-arbitrary
markup, strip_tags() causes real problems.

$search = array('@<script[^>]*?>.*?</script>@si', // Strip out javascript

Since '>' can occur in attribute values, the scan-forward-until-'>'
technique is primitive and can generate false positives. Without
parsing the rest of the tag, a '>' could be character data, it could
close the tag. Who knows? But I shouldn't think this would cause a
problem in all probabilities. I mean, major browser vendors got away
with this technique, why can't you?

Inverting a quantifier twice, as the pattern below does, means it
reverts to its default greediness:

'@<style[^>]*?>.*?</style>@siU', // Strip style tags properly

The U pattern modifier inverts quantifier greediness pattern-wide but
the '?' reverts the second star's greediness, meaning that star is now
greedy again. Not what you want. The fix is to either remove the U
pattern modifier or remove the second '?'.

'@<![\s\S]*?--[ \t\n\r]*>@', // Strip multi-line comments including CDATA

This is made up.

Comments are defined:

[91] comment declaration =
mdo,
( comment,
( s |
comment )* )?,
mdc

[92] comment =
com,
SGML character*,
com

In English, the declaration opens with '<!' (MDO) and closes with '>'
(MDC). In between is an optional comment followed by zero or more
comments or "whitespaces". Comments themselves are composed of '--'
(COM) followed by zero or more SGML characters followed by COM. As a
regular expression (untested):

/<!(--.*?--([ \r\n\t]|--.*?--)*)?>/s

"@</?[^>]*>*@"

You say error, I say broken by design.

--
Jock