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Removing HTML tags from a string

How to remove HTML tags from a string so that plain text can be output?

let str = string.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("<[^>]+>", withString: "", options: .RegularExpressionSearch, range: nil) print(str)
+84
html ios swift
Sep 22 '14 at 21:42
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5 answers

Hmm, I tried your function and it worked on a small example:

 var string = "<!DOCTYPE html> <html> <body> <h1>My First Heading</h1> <p>My first paragraph.</p> </body> </html>" let str = string.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("<[^>]+>", withString: "", options: .RegularExpressionSearch, range: nil) print(str) //output " My First Heading My first paragraph. "

Can you give an example of a problem?

+132
Sep 22 '14 at 22:34
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Since HTML is not a regular language (HTML is a language without context ), you cannot use regular expressions. See: Using regular expressions to parse HTML: why not?

I would consider using NSAttributedString instead.

 let htmlString = "LCD Soundsystem was the musical project of producer <a href='http://www.last.fm/music/James+Murphy' class='bbcode_artist'>James Murphy</a>, co-founder of <a href='http://www.last.fm/tag/dance-punk' class='bbcode_tag' rel='tag'>dance-punk</a> label <a href='http://www.last.fm/label/DFA' class='bbcode_label'>DFA</a> Records. Formed in 2001 in New York City, New York, United States, the music of LCD Soundsystem can also be described as a mix of <a href='http://www.last.fm/tag/alternative%20dance' class='bbcode_tag' rel='tag'>alternative dance</a> and <a href='http://www.last.fm/tag/post%20punk' class='bbcode_tag' rel='tag'>post punk</a>, along with elements of <a href='http://www.last.fm/tag/disco' class='bbcode_tag' rel='tag'>disco</a> and other styles. <br />" let htmlStringData = htmlString.dataUsingEncoding(NSUTF8StringEncoding)! let options: [String: AnyObject] = [NSDocumentTypeDocumentAttribute: NSHTMLTextDocumentType, NSCharacterEncodingDocumentAttribute: NSUTF8StringEncoding] let attributedHTMLString = try! NSAttributedString(data: htmlStringData, options: options, documentAttributes: nil) let string = attributedHTMLString.string

Or, as Irshad Mohamed would have done in the comments:

 let attributed = try NSAttributedString(data: htmlString.data(using: .unicode)!, options: [NSDocumentTypeDocumentAttribute: NSHTMLTextDocumentType], documentAttributes: nil) print(attributed.string)
+24
Dec 28 '15 at 8:48
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Mohamed's solution, but as a line extension in Swift 4.

 extension String { func stripOutHtml() -> String? { do { guard let data = self.data(using: .unicode) else { return nil } let attributed = try NSAttributedString(data: data, options: [.documentType: NSAttributedString.DocumentType.html, .characterEncoding: String.Encoding.utf8.rawValue], documentAttributes: nil) return attributed.string } catch { return nil } } }
+8
Jan 30 '19 at 11:23
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I use the following extension to remove certain HTML elements:

 extension String { func deleteHTMLTag(tag:String) -> String { return self.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("(?i)</?\(tag)\\b[^<]*>", withString: "", options: .RegularExpressionSearch, range: nil) } func deleteHTMLTags(tags:[String]) -> String { var mutableString = self for tag in tags { mutableString = mutableString.deleteHTMLTag(tag) } return mutableString } }

This allows you to remove only the <a> tags from the string, for example:

 let string = "my html <a href="">link text</a>" let withoutHTMLString = string.deleteHTMLTag("a") // Will be "my html link text"
+7
Feb 15 '16 at 12:30
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Swift 4:

 extension String { func deleteHTMLTag(tag:String) -> String { return self.replacingOccurrences(of: "(?i)</?\(tag)\\b[^<]*>", with: "", options: .regularExpression, range: nil) } func deleteHTMLTags(tags:[String]) -> String { var mutableString = self for tag in tags { mutableString = mutableString.deleteHTMLTag(tag: tag) } return mutableString } }
+3
May 13 '18 at 23:09
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