strip_tags

(PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7)

Strip HTML and PHP tags from a string

string strip_tags ( string $str [, string $allowable_tags ] )

This function tries to return a string with all NULL bytes, HTML and PHP tags stripped from a given str. It uses the same tag stripping state machine as the fgetss() function.

Parameters:

str

The input string.

allowable_tags

You can use the optional second parameter to specify tags which should not be stripped.

Note:

HTML comments and PHP tags are also stripped. This is hardcoded and can not be changed with allowable_tags.

Note:

In PHP 5.3.4 and later, self-closing XHTML tags are ignored and only non-self-closing tags should be used in str. For example, to allow both   and  , you should use:

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<?php
strip_tags($input, ' ');
?>

Returns:

Returns the stripped string.

Changelog:

5.3.4

strip_tags() allowable_tags

5.0.0

strip_tags()

Notes:

Tag names within the input HTML that are greater than 1023 bytes in length will be treated as though they are invalid, regardless of the allowable_tags parameter.

Examples:

In PHP 5.3.4 and later, self-closing XHTML tags are ignored and only non-self-closing tags should be used in str. For example, to allow both   and  , you should use:

<?php
strip_tags($input, '<br>');
?>

strip_tags() example

<?php
$text = '<p>Test paragraph.</p><!-- Comment --> <a href="#fragment">Other text</a>';
echo strip_tags($text);
echo "\n";
 
// Allow <p> and <a>
echo strip_tags($text, '<p><a>');
?>

The above example will output:

Test paragraph. Other text
<p>Test paragraph.</p> <a href="#fragment">Other text</a>