Regex to strip tag only

Question

$re = '/(<(span|br)\b[^>]*>).*?(<\/\2>)/';
$str = '<p><span>Discover a new tough case for your iPhone 5 with Active Urban</span><span>™</span><span>&nbsp;Case from Cat phones.<br/>Made to survive the challenges of everyday life, this protective case will shield your device whether you\'ve chucked it in your bag, dropped it on the floor or left it in clumsy hands.<br>No matter the situation, the Active Urban</span><span>™</span><span>&nbsp;Case will live up to the challenge.</span></p>';

preg_match_all($re, $str, $matches);

// Print the entire match result
print_r($matches);

The issue with my regex is that it doesn't match self closing tags like br and also it selects the entire span, I just need to strip the tags, not its contents.

[`strip_tags`](https://secure.php.net/manual/en/function.strip-tags.php) — Tushar, Dec 12 '16 at 05:48
[Remove all html tags from php string](//stackoverflow.com/q/14684077) — Tushar, Dec 12 '16 at 05:48
@Tushar No, don't want to strip all tags, specific tags only. — eozzy, Dec 12 '16 at 05:49
@Dagon True, but parsers aren't great either. I'm using HTMLPurifier and it strips a lot of important stuff. I guess you just have to use whatever works when working with crappy malformed HTML. — eozzy, Dec 12 '16 at 05:55

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 12 '16 at 05:52

2

You can try this:

<\/?\s*span\s*>|<\s*br\s*\/?\s*>

and replace by empty

$re = '/<\/?\s*span\s*>|<\s*br\s*\/?\s*>/m';
$str = '<p><span>Discover a new tough case for your iPhone 5 with Active Urban</span><span>™</span><span>&nbsp;Case from Cat phones.<br/>Made to survive the challenges of everyday life, this protective case will shield your device whether you\\\'ve chucked it in your bag, dropped it on the floor or left it in clumsy hands.<br>No matter the situation, the Active Urban</span><span>™</span><span>&nbsp;Case will live up to the challenge.</span></p>';
$subst = '';
$result = preg_replace($re, $subst, $str);
echo $result;

Explanation

answered Dec 12 '16 at 05:52

Mustofa Rizwan

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`<\/?\s*(span|br)\/?\s*>` can be more shorter form. https://regex101.com/r/miu4kz/1 – Manwal Dec 12 '16 at 05:58
@Manwal true that , but it will match this : as well and as well. Although both are incorrect syntax – Mustofa Rizwan Dec 12 '16 at 05:59
1

@Maverick_Mrt .. except that its highly unlike a `` or `` would appear in HTML. ;) – eozzy Dec 12 '16 at 06:06
@3zzy I already agreed that both are incorrect syntax. I just try to follow best practice. Which is, it should only match what it is supposed to match :) – Mustofa Rizwan Dec 12 '16 at 06:43

Regex to strip tag only

1 Answers1