Using script to find string of text up until first html tag

Question

I have a service that is returning a message. That message may be a combination of plain text or an html formatted text.

ex1: "This is a message"

ex2: "<p> This is also a message <p/>"

ex3: "This is also a <strong> message </strong>"

The thing we would like to do is come up with a script that would return as much plain text up until the first tag. So in the examples above:

would return "This is a message.
would return ""
would return "This is also a"

I am not sure what approach is the best to do this. Can i accomplish this using Regex or JS. I know Regex can easily return text between two tags, but what i am looking for is a little different. Thanks in advance for any advice or help.

Don't parse HTML with Regex.

esqew
– esqew

2014-06-26 19:12:30 +00:00
Commented Jun 26, 2014 at 19:12 — esqew
– esqew, Commented Jun 26, 2014 at 19:12

Tim Pietzcker · Accepted Answer · 2014-06-26 19:42:54Z

3

The simplest solution would be to match anything except <s, starting at the beginning of the string:

match = subject.match(/^[^<]*/)[0];

This fails if <s could occur in comments/quoted strings before the first HTML tag, but that might not be a problem.

Test on JSFiddle

Explanation:

^      # Anchor the match to the start of the string.
[^<]   # Match any character that's not a <
*      # zero or more times (as many as possible).

edited Jun 26, 2014 at 19:42

answered Jun 26, 2014 at 19:21

Tim Pietzcker

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7 Comments

Braj Over a year ago

Have you tested for last example.

Braj Over a year ago

Can you share a link where you tested it?

Braj Over a year ago

will it work for This is also a <strong> message </strong> string

Gabriel Over a year ago

In that example i would still want "This is also a"... so it would work for what i need it for.

Tim Pietzcker Over a year ago

@Braj: Of course it will, how is that so difficult to see or test?

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