How do I remove all HTML tags from a string without knowing which tags are in it?

Question

Is there any easy way to remove all HTML tags or ANYTHING HTML related from a string?

For example:

string title = "<b> Hulk Hogan's Celebrity Championship Wrestling &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<font color=\"#228b22\">[Proj # 206010]</font></b>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; (Reality Series, &nbsp;)"

The above should really be:

"Hulk Hogan's Celebrity Championship Wrestling [Proj # 206010] (Reality Series)"

This question is closed due to duplication but suggested answer is given using Html Agility Pack. If you want to remove html tags with out using Html Agility pack you can refer my answer here stackoverflow.com/a/30026043/2318354 . Which may be helpful to some one — Dilip Langhanoja
– Dilip Langhanoja, Commented May 5, 2015 at 10:55
This is not a duplicate, as "HTML agility pack - removing unwanted tags without removing content?" wants to keep some tags (ie, give a list of valid tags, remove the rest). This question here is about removing ALL tags. And I can't use the other question's answers as I'm not going to pass in a list of all html tags in existence. — Thierry_S
– Thierry_S, Commented Jan 18, 2017 at 19:23
Take a look at xidel. It will take you 95% of the way there with xidel -s input -e '/'. — vhs
– vhs, Commented Apr 24, 2020 at 19:19

Michael Freidgeim · Accepted Answer · 2021-06-22 00:29:47Z

412

You can use a simple regex like this:

public static string StripHTML(string input)
{
   return Regex.Replace(input, "<.*?>", String.Empty);
}

Be aware that this solution has its own flaw. See Remove HTML tags in String for more information (especially the comments of 'Mark E. Haase'/@mehaase)

Another solution would be to use the HTML Agility Pack.
You can find an example using the library here: HTML agility pack - removing unwanted tags without removing content?

edited Jun 22, 2021 at 0:29

Michael Freidgeim

28.8k17 gold badges164 silver badges181 bronze badges

answered Aug 9, 2013 at 19:14

nicolas

7,7589 gold badges50 silver badges71 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

10 Comments

Bartosz Pierzchlewicz Over a year ago

Doesn't work for input: '7 < 10 <b>but</b> 30 > 10' it gives: '7 but 30 > 10'

David Klempfner Over a year ago

Shouldn't the method name be StripHtml() since method names should use Pascal case?

Mathias Lykkegaard Lorenzen Over a year ago

Using regular expressions for this is probably not a good idea if you are using it for security reasons.

Brandon Prudent Over a year ago

Just change the regex to <[a-zA-Z/]*?>

tarn Over a year ago

@BrandonPrudent maybe better would be <[a-zA-Z/].*?> - it includes attributes

|

ssilas777 · Accepted Answer · 2013-08-09 19:21:52Z

88

You can parse the string using Html Agility pack and get the InnerText.

    HtmlDocument htmlDoc = new HtmlDocument();
    htmlDoc.LoadHtml(@"<b> Hulk Hogan's Celebrity Championship Wrestling &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<font color=\"#228b22\">[Proj # 206010]</font></b>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; (Reality Series, &nbsp;)");
    string result = htmlDoc.DocumentNode.InnerText;

answered Aug 9, 2013 at 19:21

ssilas777

9,7704 gold badges48 silver badges70 bronze badges

2 Comments

Thierry_S Over a year ago

I like the InnerText solution as it removes all tags. But... it leaves behind   and also comment tags such as  like those surrounding v:shapetype, v:shape or v:imagedata with [if gte vml 1] or [if !vml]

Thierry_S Over a year ago

I realize that   is an html entity, not a tag, so a solution to remove that could be result = WebUtility.HtmlDecode(result); and to remove the comment nodes, using the Html Agility Pack: htmlDoc.DocumentNode.SelectNodes("//comment()")?.ForEach(c=> c.Remove()); just before doing result = htmlDoc.DocumentNode.InnerText;

Vinay · Accepted Answer · 2013-08-09 21:02:54Z

7

You can use the below code on your string and you will get the complete string without html part.

string title = "<b> Hulk Hogan's Celebrity Championship Wrestling &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<font color=\"#228b22\">[Proj # 206010]</font></b>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; (Reality Series, &nbsp;)".Replace("&nbsp;",string.Empty);            
        string s = Regex.Replace(title, "<.*?>", String.Empty);

edited Aug 9, 2013 at 21:02

answered Aug 9, 2013 at 20:50

Vinay

7353 gold badges9 silver badges25 bronze badges

Comments

Jeff Qi · Accepted Answer · 2022-07-11 20:42:51Z

I built a small function to remove HTML tags.

public static string RemoveHtmlTags(string text)
        {
            List<int> openTagIndexes = Regex.Matches(text, "<").Cast<Match>().Select(m => m.Index).ToList();
            List<int> closeTagIndexes = Regex.Matches(text, ">").Cast<Match>().Select(m => m.Index).ToList();
            if (closeTagIndexes.Count > 0)
            {
                StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
                int previousIndex = 0;
                foreach (int closeTagIndex in closeTagIndexes)
                {
                    var openTagsSubset = openTagIndexes.Where(x => x >= previousIndex && x < closeTagIndex);
                    if (openTagsSubset.Count() > 0 && closeTagIndex - openTagsSubset.Max() > 1 )
                    {
                        sb.Append(text.Substring(previousIndex, openTagsSubset.Max() - previousIndex));
                    }
                    else
                    {
                        sb.Append(text.Substring(previousIndex, closeTagIndex - previousIndex + 1));
                    }
                    previousIndex = closeTagIndex + 1;
                }
                if (closeTagIndexes.Max() < text.Length)
                {
                    sb.Append(text.Substring(closeTagIndexes.Max() + 1));
                }
                return sb.ToString();
            }
            else
            {
                return text;
            }
        }

Chaan Rahman · Accepted Answer · 2024-01-29 06:07:42Z

0

public static string StripHtml(string input)
    {
        return string.IsNullOrEmpty(input) ? input : System.Web.HttpUtility.HtmlDecode(System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Replace(input, "<.*?>", String.Empty));
    }

answered Jan 29, 2024 at 6:07

Chaan Rahman

11 bronze badge

Comments

Shunya · Accepted Answer · 2022-07-27 09:01:41Z

-1

public static string StripHTML(string input)
{
    if (input==null)
    {
        return string.Empty;
    }
    return Regex.Replace(input, "<.*?>", String.Empty);

}

edited Jul 27, 2022 at 9:01

Shunya

2,4894 gold badges20 silver badges36 bronze badges

answered Jul 27, 2022 at 6:25

Khanbala Rashidov

1009 bronze badges

2 Comments

Ethan Over a year ago

Your answer could be improved with additional supporting information. Please edit to add further details, such as citations or documentation, so that others can confirm that your answer is correct. You can find more information on how to write good answers in the help center.

EGN Over a year ago

This solution is already provided

Jaykumar Chaniyara · Accepted Answer · 2024-02-22 09:32:55Z

-1

static Regex htmlRegex = new Regex("<.*?>", RegexOptions.Compiled);
   
public static string RemoveHTMLTagsCompiled(string html)
{
 return htmlRegex.Replace(html, string.Empty);
}

answered Feb 22, 2024 at 9:32

Jaykumar Chaniyara

193 bronze badges

1 Comment

nalka May 17 at 21:36

If your code does something different (meaningful for the question) than the one in this earlier answer, please explain. If not, your answer adds nothing

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

How do I remove all HTML tags from a string without knowing which tags are in it?

7 Answers 7

10 Comments

2 Comments

Comments

Comments

Comments

2 Comments

1 Comment

Your Answer

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

7 Answers 7

10 Comments

2 Comments

Comments

Comments

Comments

2 Comments

1 Comment

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Linked

Related