---
name: "HTML::Strip"
section: "3pm"
platform: "linux"
package: "perl-html-strip"
version: "2.12-6"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/HTML::Strip"
---

# HTML::Strip(3pm)

Perl extension for stripping HTML markup from text.

## NAME

HTML::Strip - Perl extension for stripping HTML markup from text.

## SYNOPSIS

```
  use HTML::Strip;
  my $hs = HTML::Strip->new();
  my $clean_text = $hs->parse( $raw_html );
  $hs->eof;
```

## DESCRIPTION

This module simply strips HTML-like markup from text rapidly and brutally.  It could easily be used to strip XML or SGML markup instead - but as removing HTML is a much more common problem, this module lives in the HTML:: namespace.

It is written in XS, and thus about five times quicker than using regular expressions for the same task.

It does *not* do any syntax checking.  If you want that, use HTML::Parser.  Instead it merely applies the following rules:

- 1\.

  Anything that looks like a tag, or group of tags will be replaced with a single space character.  Tags are considered to be anything that starts with a `"<"` and ends with a `">"`; with the caveat that a `">"` character may appear in either of the following without ending the tag:

  - Quote

    Quotes are considered to start with either a `"'"` or a `"""` character, and end with a matching character *not* preceded by an even number or escaping slashes (i.e. `"\""` does not end the quote but `"\\\\""` does).

  - Comment

    If the tag starts with an exclamation mark, it is assumed to be a declaration or a comment.   Within such tags, `">"` characters do not end the tag if they appear within pairs of double dashes (e.g. `"<!-- <a href="old.htm">old page</a> -->"` would be stripped completely).  No parsing for quotes is performed within comments, so for instance `"<!-- comment with both ' quote types " -->"` would be entirely stripped.

- 2\.

  Anything that appears between tags which we term *strip tags* is removed. By default, these tags are `"title"`, `"script"`, `"style"` and `"applet"`.

HTML::Strip maintains state between calls, so you can parse a document in chunks should you wish.  If a call to `parse()` ends half-way through a tag, quote or comment; the next call to `parse()` expects its input to carry on from that point.

If this is not the behaviour you want, you can either call `eof()` between calls to `parse()`, or set `"auto_reset"` to true (either on the constructor or with `"set_auto_reset"`) so that the parser will reset after each call.

### METHODS

- **new()**

  Constructor.  Can optionally take a hash of settings (with keys corresponding to the `"set_"` methods below).

  Example:

  ```
   my $hs = HTML::Strip->new(
       striptags   => [ 'script', 'iframe' ],
       emit_spaces => 0
   );
  ```

- **parse()**

  Takes a string as an argument, returns it stripped of HTML.

- **eof()**

  Resets the current state information, ready to parse a new block of HTML.

- **clear\_striptags()**

  Clears the current set of strip tags.

- **add\_striptag()**

  Adds the string passed as an argument to the current set of strip tags.

- **set\_striptags()**

  Takes a reference to an array of strings, which replace the current set of strip tags.

- **set\_emit\_spaces()**

  Takes a boolean value.  If set to false, HTML::Strip will not attempt any conversion of tags into spaces.  Set to true by default.

- **set\_emit\_newlines()**

  Takes a boolean value.  If set to true, HTML::Strip will output newlines after `"<br>"` and `"<p>"` tags.  Set to false by default.

- **set\_decode\_entities()**

  Takes a boolean value.  If set to false, HTML::Strip will not decode HTML entities.  Set to true by default.

- **filter\_entities()**

  If HTML::Entities is available, this method behaves just like invoking HTML::Entities::decode\_entities, except that it respects the current setting of 'decode\_entities'.

- **set\_filter()**

  Sets a filter to be applied after tags were stripped. It may accept the name of a method (like 'filter\_entities') or a code ref.  By default, its value is 'filter\_entities' if HTML::Entities is available or `"undef"` otherwise.

- **set\_auto\_reset()**

  Takes a boolean value.  If set to true, `"parse"` resets after each call (equivalent to calling `"eof"`).  Otherwise, the parser remembers its state from one call to `"parse"` to another, until you call `"eof"` explicitly.  Set to false by default.

- **set\_debug()**

  Outputs extensive debugging information on internal state during the parse. Not intended to be used by anyone except the module maintainer.

- **decode\_entities()**

  - **filter()**

  - **auto\_reset()**

  - **debug()**

  Readonly accessors for their respective settings.

### LIMITATIONS

- Whitespace

  Despite only outputting one space character per group of tags, and avoiding doing so when tags are bordered by spaces or the start or end of strings, HTML::Strip can often output more than desired; such as with the following HTML:

  ```
   <h1> HTML::Strip </h1> <p> <em> <strong> fast, and brutal </strong> </em> </p>
  ```

  Which gives the following output:

  `" HTML::Strip    fast, and brutal   "`

  Thus, you may want to post-filter the output of HTML::Strip to remove excess whitespace (for example, using `"tr/ / /s;"`). (This has been improved since previous releases, but is still an issue)

- HTML Entities

  HTML::Strip will only attempt decoding of HTML entities if HTML::Entities is installed.

### EXPORT

None by default.

## AUTHOR

Alex Bowley \<kilinrax@cpan.org\>

## SEE ALSO

perl, HTML::Parser, HTML::Entities

## LICENSE

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.