FAQ 9.4 How do I remove HTML from a string?

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9.4: How do I remove HTML from a string?

The most correct way (albeit not the fastest) is to use HTML::Parser
from CPAN. Another mostly correct way is to use HTML::FormatText which
not only removes HTML but also attempts to do a little simple formatting
of the resulting plain text.

Many folks attempt a simple-minded regular expression approach, like
"s/<.*?>//g", but that fails in many cases because the tags may continue
over line breaks, they may contain quoted angle-brackets, or HTML
comment may be present. Plus, folks forget to convert entities--like
"&lt;" for example.

Here's one "simple-minded" approach, that works for most files:

#!/usr/bin/perl -p0777
s/<(?:[^>'"]*|(['"]).*?\1)*>//gs

If you want a more complete solution, see the 3-stage striphtml program
in http://www.cpan.org/authors/Tom_Christiansen/scripts/striphtml.gz .

Here are some tricky cases that you should think about when picking a
solution:

<IMG SRC = "foo.gif" ALT = "A > B">

<IMG SRC = "foo.gif"
ALT = "A > B">

<!-- <A comment> -->

<script>if (a<b && a>c)</script>

<# Just data #>

<![INCLUDE CDATA [ >>>>>>>>>>>> ]]>

If HTML comments include other tags, those solutions would also break on
text like this:

<!-- This section commented out.
<B>You can't see me!</B>
-->



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