How to Strip HTML from a String in JavaScript

HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) is widely used to create web pages, and it’s a powerful tool for developers

However, in some cases, it may be necessary to extract only the plain text content of an HTML string, leaving behind the HTML tags.

This process is known as HTML stripping.

Why strip HTML from a string in JavaScript?

There are several reasons why a developer might want to strip HTML tags from a string in JavaScript.

For example, to display a snippet of text on a page without the accompanying HTML formatting, to prevent cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks, or to perform text analysis on the content of a web page.

How to strip HTML from a string in JavaScript?

There are several methods to remove HTML tags from a string in JavaScript.

The most straightforward method is to use regular expressions to search for and replace HTML tags with an empty string.

Code example using regular expressions

const stripHTML = (html) => {
  return html.replace(/<[^>]+>/g, "");
};

Another method is to use the DOM Parser API to parse the HTML string into a Document Object Model (DOM) and extract the text content of the elements.

Code example using the DOM Parser API

const stripHTML = (html) =&gt; {
  const parser = new DOMParser();
  const doc = parser.parseFromString(html, "text/html");
  return doc.body.textContent;
};

Conclusion

Stripping HTML from a string in JavaScript is a simple process that can be accomplished using regular expressions or the DOM Parser API.

Both methods have their pros and cons, and the choice of which method to use will depend on the specific requirements of the project.

Regular expressions are a fast and efficient solution, but they can be difficult to maintain and debug.

On the other hand, the DOM Parser API is more flexible and easier to debug, but it may be slower and more memory-intensive than regular expressions.

Regardless of the method chosen, stripping HTML tags from a string in JavaScript can be a useful tool for developers working with web content.

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