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Strip HTML from a given text

Written byPhuoc Nguyen
Created
10 Mar, 2020
Last updated
30 Mar, 2020
Category
Level 1 — Basic
Contributors
motss
js
const stripHtml = function (html) {
// Create new element
const ele = document.createElement('div');

// Set its HTML
ele.innerHTML = html;

// Return the text only
return ele.textContent || '';
};
This approach isn't recommended because it can cause a security issue if the input `html` consists of special tags, such as `<script>`. However, we can prevent the html from being executed by replacing the `div` tag with `textarea`:
js
const stripHtml = function (html) {
const ele = document.createElement('textarea');
ele.innerHTML = html;
return ele.textContent || '';
};

2. Use DOMParser

js
const stripHtml = function (html) {
const doc = new DOMParser().parseFromString(html, 'text/html');
return doc.body.textContent || '';
};

3. Use template

The `<template>` tag holds a HTML content that is not to be rendered immediately. However, this is not supported on older browser such as IE 11.
js
const stripHtml = function (html) {
const ele = document.createElement('template');
ele.innerHTML = html;
return ele.content.textContent || '';
};

See also

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