How to convert NSString HTML markup to plain text NSString?

Question

Been searching the net for an example of how to convert HTML string markup into Plain text.

I get my information from a feed which contains HTML, I then display this information in a Text View. does the UITextView have a property to convert HTML or do I have to do it in code. I tried:

NSString *str = [NSString stringWithCString:self.fullText encoding:NSUTF8StringEndcoding];

but doesn't seem to work. Anyone got any ideas?

Madhup Singh Yadav · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-12T12:35:16.763

33

You can do it by parsing the html by using NSScanner class

- (NSString *)flattenHTML:(NSString *)html {

    NSScanner *theScanner;
    NSString *text = nil;
    theScanner = [NSScanner scannerWithString:html];

    while ([theScanner isAtEnd] == NO) {

        [theScanner scanUpToString:@"<" intoString:NULL] ; 

        [theScanner scanUpToString:@">" intoString:&text] ;

        html = [html stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@>", text] withString:@""];
    }
    //
    html = [html stringByTrimmingCharactersInSet:[NSCharacterSet whitespaceAndNewlineCharacterSet]];

    return html;
}

Hope this helps.

edited Mar 12 '13 at 12:35

answered Apr 09 '10 at 09:33

Madhup Singh Yadav

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Doesn't deal with single quotes but for everything else works fine. – Frames84 Apr 09 '10 at 10:45
If you are having single quotes and you don't want to show them just replace there occurrence by blank string – Madhup Singh Yadav Apr 09 '10 at 12:24
Hi @Madhup. please have look at the question -http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8148291/convert-formatted-html-text-string-to-nsstring-parts and advice. – chatur Nov 16 '11 at 07:51

score 8 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 08 '12 at 10:50

8

If you are using UIWebView then it will be easier to parse HTML to text:

fullArticle = [webView stringByEvaluatingJavaScriptFromString:@"document.body.getElementsByTagName('article')[0].innerText;"]; // extract the contents by tag

fullArticle = [webView stringByEvaluatingJavaScriptFromString:@"document.body.innerText"]; // extract text inside body part of HTML

edited Jun 08 '12 at 10:50

Luke

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answered Jun 08 '12 at 10:06

Veera Raj

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score -1 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 09 '10 at 09:14

-1

you can't do it directly i guess.. however you can use NSXML Parser and parse the HTML and retrieve exactly what you want...

answered Apr 09 '10 at 09:14

Mihir Mehta

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would this method keep the formatting? What I want is to display the formatted HTML in plain text, so keep links,

etc.. how do other app do this?
– Frames84 Apr 09 '10 at 10:46
NSXML parser will not parse normal HTML. It fails on HTML only characters. – Neil Dec 29 '12 at 23:36

score -1 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 09 '10 at 09:43

-1

If you need to present the text in read-only fashion, why not use UIWebView?

answered Apr 09 '10 at 09:43

dusker

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UIWebView display's a webpage inside a app? need a control or method of keeping the html format but not displaying it. my output contains the markup were i want to it keep to style but not show the html. – Frames84 Apr 09 '10 at 10:50

How to convert NSString HTML markup to plain text NSString?

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