[SOLVED] Strip tags with javascript and handle line breaks

Strip tags with javascript and handle line breaks

I want to strip tags from a html, but preserves it's line breaks.

I want the behaviour like copying the text in browser and pasting it in notepad.

For example, a code that converts:

<div>x1</div><div>x2</div> to x1\nx2
<p>x1</p><p>x2</p> to x1\nx2
<b>x1</b><i>x2</i> to x1x2
x1<br>x2 to x1\nx2

Removing all tags not works (/<.*?>/g). Also creating a dummy <div> and settings it's innertHTML and read it's textContent will remove line breaks.

Any Help?

Solution

Try:

function strip_tags(str){
    return str
             .replace(/(<(br[^>]*)>)/ig, '\n')
             .replace(/(<([^>]+)>)/ig,'');
}

var str = '<div>x1</div><div>x2</div><br>'+'<p>x1</p><p>x2</p>'+'<b>x1</b><i>x2</i>';

This will strip the tags and replace <br /> or <br> with new lines, but adding new lines for block elements requires quite some time to come up with a solution.

Here is a demo