Stripping out HTML tags from a string

How do I remove HTML tags from a string so that I can output clean text?

let str = string.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("<[^>]+>", withString: "", options: .RegularExpressionSearch, range: nil)
print(str)

Solution 1:

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?

Swift 4 and 5 version:

var string = "<!DOCTYPE html> <html> <body> <h1>My First Heading</h1> <p>My first paragraph.</p> </body> </html>"
let str = string.replacingOccurrences(of: "<[^>]+>", with: "", options: .regularExpression, range: nil)

Solution 2:

Since HTML is not a regular language (HTML is a context-free language), 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 in the comments would do it:

let attributed = try NSAttributedString(data: htmlString.data(using: .unicode)!, options: [NSDocumentTypeDocumentAttribute: NSHTMLTextDocumentType], documentAttributes: nil)
print(attributed.string)

Solution 3:

Mohamed solution but as a String 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
        }
    }
}

Stripping out HTML tags from a string

Solution 1:

Solution 2:

Solution 3:

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