To strip HTML tags from a textarea in PHP, you can use the strip_tags() function. This function removes all HTML and PHP tags from a string, leaving only the plain text content. Here's an example of how to use it:
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$text = $_POST['textarea'];
$strippedText = strip_tags($text);
In this example, the $_POST['textarea'] value is obtained from a form textarea field. The strip_tags() function is then applied to the $text variable, and the result is stored in the $strippedText variable. You can then use this stripped text for any purpose you desire, such as inserting it into a database or displaying it on your website.
Note that the strip_tags() function removes all HTML and PHP tags by default. If you want to allow certain HTML tags to remain in the output, you can specify them as a second argument to the function, like this:
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$strippedText = strip_tags($text, '<p><a><strong>');
In this example, the strip_tags() function will remove all HTML and PHP tags except for <p>, <a>, and <strong>. This can be useful if you want to allow certain formatting tags in your text while removing potentially malicious tags.
It's important to note that the strip_tags() function only removes the HTML tags themselves, not any attributes or content within those tags. To fully remove all HTML and PHP code from a string, you should also consider using a library such as HTML Purifier, which is specifically designed for this purpose. HTML Purifier can be used to clean and validate HTML input, ensuring that it is safe to use and display on your website.
Another alternative is to use the preg_replace() function to remove HTML tags from a string. This function can be used to search for and replace specific patterns in a string, and can be especially useful for removing HTML tags that might contain certain attributes or content that you don't want to keep. Here's an example of how you could use preg_replace() to remove HTML tags:
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$text = $_POST['textarea'];
$strippedText = preg_replace('/<[^>]+>/', '', $text);
In this example, the preg_replace() function is used to search for and remove any substrings that match the pattern /<[^>]+>/. This pattern matches any HTML tags in the $text variable, and replaces them with an empty string, effectively removing the tags from the text.
Regardless of which method you choose, it's important to thoroughly test your code and validate the input from your textarea field to ensure that it is safe to use and display on your website. By using strip_tags(), preg_replace(), or a library such as HTML Purifier, you can remove HTML tags from a textarea in PHP and help protect your website from malicious code.