How to remove all the html from a string in swift

Question

Consider this string value:

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 />

How can all html tags be removed in Swift?

So the result has to be:

LCD Soundsystem was the musical project of producer James Murphy, co-founder of dance-punk label DFA 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 alternative dance and post punk, along with elements of disco and other styles.

Possible duplicate of [Stripping out html tags from a string](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/25983558/stripping-out-html-tags-from-a-string) — Joony, Dec 29 '15 at 09:54

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 24 '14 at 23:50

You may use a regular expression, notice the one I've created:

    var str = "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 regex:NSRegularExpression  = NSRegularExpression(
        pattern: "<.*?>",
        options: NSRegularExpressionOptions.CaseInsensitive,
        error: nil)!


    let range = NSMakeRange(0, countElements(str))
    let htmlLessString :String = regex.stringByReplacingMatchesInString(str,
        options: NSMatchingOptions.allZeros,
        range:range ,
        withTemplate: "")


    println(htmlLessString)

It converts:

"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 />"

to

"LCD Soundsystem was the musical project of producer James Murphy, co-founder of dance-punk label DFA 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 alternative dance and post punk, along with elements of disco and other styles."

the only thing is that I've converted all double quotes(") to single quotes and then apply the regex, otherwise I needed to escape them all using "\"

Update:

I also tried escaping all double quotes by using "\" and the result was still the same:

new string I used was:

"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 />"

and result:

"LCD Soundsystem was the musical project of producer James Murphy, co-founder of dance-punk label DFA 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 alternative dance and post punk, along with elements of disco and other styles."

Please avoid trying to parse html with regular expression, as html is not a regular language : http://stackoverflow.com/a/1732454/1283385 — Dulgan, Sep 06 '16 at 11:53

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 01 '16 at 10:41

Here is CjCoaxs code rewritten for Swift 2.0:

var str = "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 regex = try! NSRegularExpression(pattern: "<.*?>", options: [.CaseInsensitive])

let range = NSMakeRange(0, input.characters.count)
let htmlLessString :String = regex.stringByReplacingMatchesInString(input, options: [],
    range:range ,
    withTemplate: "")

print(htmlLessString)

Please avoid trying to parse html with regular expression, as html is not a regular language : stackoverflow.com/a/1732454/1283385 — Dulgan, Sep 06 '16 at 11:53

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 16 '16 at 09:35

Here is code for Swift 3.0:

do {
        let regex =  "<[^>]+>"
        let expr = try NSRegularExpression(pattern: regex, options: NSRegularExpression.Options.caseInsensitive)
        let replacement = expr.stringByReplacingMatches(in: originalString, options: [], range: NSMakeRange(0, comment.characters.count), withTemplate: "")
        //replacement is the result
    } catch {
        // regex was bad!
    }

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 07 '17 at 20:04

Try SwiftSoup it's easy

do{
    let html = "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 doc: Document = try SwiftSoup.parse(html)
    return try doc.text()
}catch Exception.Error(let type, let message)
{
    print("")
}catch{
    print("")
}

How to remove all the html from a string in swift

4 Answers4