Remove

Question

According to the post here, the code below can remove the HTML tag, such as <div>. But I found that the end tag </div> still remain in the string.

$content = "<div id=\"header\">this is something with an <img src=\"test.png\"/> in it.</div>";
$content = preg_replace("/<div[^>]+\>/i", "", $content); 
echo $content;

I have tried something below, but still not work, how can I fix this issue?

$content = preg_replace("/<\/div[^>]+\>/i", "", $content); 
$content = preg_replace("/<(/)div[^>]+\>/i", "", $content);

Thanks

score 9 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 13 '12 at 08:57

9

The end tag doesn't have anything between the div and the >, so instead try something like:

$content = preg_replace("/<\/?div[^>]*\>/i", "", $content);

This will remove patterns of the form:

<div>
</div>
<div class=...>

answered Mar 13 '12 at 08:57

Rowland Shaw

37,700
14
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+1 it works, what is the meaning of `?` inside `/<\/?div[^>]*\>/i` – Charles Yeung Mar 13 '12 at 08:59
1

the ? means that the / that comes before it - is optional, that's why it matches both
and
– Nir Alfasi Mar 13 '12 at 09:05

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 13 '12 at 08:55

3

change it to "/<[\/]*div[^>]*>/i"

answered Mar 13 '12 at 08:55

Desolator

22,411
20
73
96

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 13 '12 at 09:26

If you can guarantee the HTML being passed in will be valid and structured in a certain way you should be OK with regex.

In general, though, it's best to avoid using regex for working with HTML, because the markup can be so varied and messy. Instead, try using a library like DOMDocument - it handles all the messiness for you.

With DOMDocument you would do something like:

$doc = new DOMDocument;
$doc->loadHTML($html);
$headerElement = $doc->getElementById('header');
$headerElement->parentNode->removeChild($headerElement);
$amendedHtml = $doc->saveHTML();

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Aug 27 '17 at 04:27

1

$content = preg_replace("/<\/?(div|b|span)[^>]*\>/i", "", $content);

remove all

<div...>
</div>
<b....>
</b>
<span...>
</span>

answered Aug 27 '17 at 04:27

user3834265

25
5

Remove

4 Answers4