Using PHP substr() and strip_tags() while retaining formatting and without breaking HTML
- by Peter
I have various HTML strings to cut to 100 characters (of the stripped content, not the original) without stripping tags and without breaking HTML.
Original HTML string (288 characters):
$content = "<div>With a <span class='spanClass'>span over here</span> and a
<div class='divClass'>nested div over <div class='nestedDivClass'>there</div>
</div> and a lot of other nested <strong><em>texts</em> and tags in the air
<span>everywhere</span>, it's a HTML taggy kind of day.</strong></div>";
Standard trim: Trim to 100 characters and HTML breaks, stripped content comes to ~40 characters:
$content = substr($content, 0, 100)."..."; /* output:
<div>With a <span class='spanClass'>span over here</span> and a
<div class='divClass'>nested div ove... */
Stripped HTML: Outputs correct character count but obviously looses formatting:
$content = substr(strip_tags($content)), 0, 100)."..."; /* output:
With a span over here and a nested div over there and a lot of other nested
texts and tags in the ai... */
Partial solution: using HTML Tidy or purifier to close off tags outputs clean HTML but 100 characters of HTML not displayed content.
$content = substr($content, 0, 100)."...";
$tidy = new tidy; $tidy->parseString($content); $tidy->cleanRepair(); /* output:
<div>With a <span class='spanClass'>span over here</span> and a
<div class='divClass'>nested div ove</div></div>... */
Challenge: To output clean HTML and n characters (excluding character count of HTML elements):
$content = cutHTML($content, 100); /* output:
<div>With a <span class='spanClass'>span over here</span> and a
<div class='divClass'>nested div over <div class='nestedDivClass'>there</div>
</div> and a lot of other nested <strong><em>texts</em> and tags in the
ai</strong></div>...";
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