How to strip a tag and all of its inner html using the tag's id?

php html replace tags domparser

56,824

Solution 1

$dom = new DOMDocument;
$dom->loadHTML($htmlString);
$xPath = new DOMXPath($dom);
$nodes = $xPath->query('//*[@id="anotherDiv"]');
if($nodes->item(0)) {
    $nodes->item(0)->parentNode->removeChild($nodes->item(0));
}
echo $dom->saveHTML();

Solution 2

You can use preg_replace() like:

$string = preg_replace('/<div id="someid"[^>]+\>/i', "", $string);

Solution 3

Using the native XML Manipulation Library

Assuming that your html content is stored in the variable $html:

$html='<html>
 <body>
 bla bla bla bla
  <div id="myDiv"> 
         more text
      <div id="anotherDiv">
           And even more text
      </div>
  </div>

  bla bla bla
 </body>
</html>';

To delete the tag by ID use the following code:

    $dom=new DOMDocument;

    $dom->validateOnParse = false;

    $dom->loadHTML( $html );

    // get the tag

    $div = $dom->getElementById('anotherDiv');

   // delete the tag

    if( $div && $div->nodeType==XML_ELEMENT_NODE ){

        $div->parentNode->removeChild( $div );
    }

    echo $dom->saveHTML();

Note that certain versions of libxml require a doctype to be present in order to use the getElementById method.

In that case you can prepend $html with <!doctype>

$html = '<!doctype>' . $html;

Alternatively, as suggested by Gordon's answer, you can use DOMXPath to find the element using the xpath:

$dom=new DOMDocument;

$dom->validateOnParse = false;

$dom->loadHTML( $html );

$xp=new DOMXPath( $dom );

$col = $xp->query( '//div[ @id="anotherDiv" ]' );

if( !empty( $col ) ){

    foreach( $col as $node ){

        $node->parentNode->removeChild( $node );

    }

}

echo $dom->saveHTML();

The first method works regardless the tag. If you want to use the second method with the same id but a different tag, let say form, simply replace //div in //div[ @id="anotherDiv" ] by '//form'

56,824

Author by

rockstardev

Updated on November 29, 2020

Comments

rockstardev over 3 years

I have the following html:

<html>
 <body>
 bla bla bla bla
  <div id="myDiv"> 
         more text
      <div id="anotherDiv">
           And even more text
      </div>
  </div>

  bla bla bla
 </body>
</html>

I want to remove everything starting from <div id="anotherDiv"> until its closing <div>. How do I do that?

Haim Evgi almost 14 years

trip_tags() doesn’t work the way he want it to. strip_tags() allows for certain exclusions, but why would you use that when you only want to exclude one tag and include all other tags
ItsPronounced almost 14 years

From his question, I couldn't really tell what tags he was trying to remove. It seemed as if he wanted to remove everything. Thanks for the input.
ItsPronounced almost 14 years

Ahhh, using chrome. His inline markup didn't show up. I just checked it in firefox and I see his inline markup. You are correct :) Any reason why it didn't show up in chrome?
jigfox almost 14 years

this will remove all divs and not only the specified one.
rockstardev almost 14 years

You don't specify anywhere that it must remove the div with the ID=myDiv?
Sisir over 12 years

what i have to modify if i want to remove all div tag in a dom?
Gordon over 12 years

@Sisir see stackoverflow.com/questions/4177376/…
azzy81 about 12 years

yes this works a treat. Ive always wante dto be able to remove an html tag form a string of html much like a jquery $(selector#id).remove(). This is just brilliant!
Gordon about 12 years

@SubstanceD if you want selectors check out phpQuery, Zend_Dom or QueryPath. Personally, I prefer XPath.
avolquez over 11 years

@HaimEvgi Is there any way to remove the content inner? for example using p tags it'll be removed, but the content of the p tags remains.
Alex Spencer over 11 years

strip_tags() worked best for me. Thanks. The reason it worked best for me is because i had tags that had no spaces. It was the easiest by far. thanks.
hakazvaka about 11 years

this rocks, but is there anyway to remove the closing </div> tag?
Tedi Çela over 7 years

Here is a simple way to strip specific tags(both open & closing): gist.github.com/tedicela/0b06265eefb8df41cb8256bb3f442916
mickmackusa over 4 years

This answer DEFINITELY doesn't do what the OP requires. 16 UVs means that lots of researchers have been misinformed and don't understand the question and/or what this answer does. This answer does far more harm than good. The overarching message should be that developers should use a dom parser to manipulate valid html.
mickmackusa over 4 years

Question says: I want to remove everything starting from <div id="anotherDiv"> until its closing <div>. How do I do that? This answer is incorrect.
mickmackusa over 4 years

Question says: I want to remove everything starting from <div id="anotherDiv"> until its closing <div>. How do I do that? This answer is incorrect.
mickmackusa over 4 years

Regex is DOM-ignorant and is prone to failure. Using a legitimate DOM parsing technique will be more robust, reliable, and scalable. Iterated preg_ calls is going to be inefficient. The m pattern modifier is of no use.
mickmackusa over 4 years

Regex is DOM-ignorant and is prone to failure. Using a legitimate DOM parsing technique will be more robust, reliable, and scalable. There is no reason to declare $html (a single-use variable); just return preg_replace(...); This snippet will fail when a tag attribute value contains >. There is no need to use a capture group.
mickmackusa over 4 years

Question says: I want to remove everything starting from <div id="anotherDiv"> until its closing <div>. How do I do that? This answer is incorrect.
mickmackusa over 4 years

This answer does not target the tag using the id as stated in the question. This answer is incorrect because it with remove elements that should not be removed.
mickmackusa over 4 years

This answer does not target the tag using the id as stated in the question. This answer is incorrect because it with remove elements that should not be removed.
mickmackusa over 4 years

This answer does not target the tag using the id as stated in the question. This answer is incorrect because it with remove elements that should not be removed.
user229044 over 4 years

This is incorrect and fails for <div id="someid" data-foo=">">. You cannot use a regex for this.
user229044 over 4 years

This is incorrect and fails for many kinds of input, for example strip_tags_blacklist('<script>let x = "<div>"></script><div>foo</div>', 'div') => <script>let x = ". You cannot use regular expressions to strip or otherwise interact with HTML.