Re: Remove HTML via PL/SQL

From: Rudi <nospam_at_127.0.0.1>
Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 14:29:23 +0100
Message-ID: <379DB433.53DB@127.0.0.1>

Gene Hubert wrote:
>
> I seem to have the opposite problem from most of the world. I've got
> static HTML stored in Oracle 8.0.5 and would like to produce a version
> of the same data with all the HTML stuff removed.
>
> Is there an existing tool that will do this? The HTML I'm working
> with is relatively simple i.e. no frames and no javascript. The data
> I want to convert is less than 32K in size.
>
> Any advice, sample code, etc. much appreciated.

Gene,

I don't know if there is a tool that does what you want. By "removing" HTML I take it you mean remove all the <TAG> </TAG> type stuff?

The way I'd do it would be to write a function along these lines:

FUNCTION remove_html (v_text IN VARCHAR2) RETURN VARCHAR2 IS

  v_count  INTEGER;           -- used to loop thru text containing HTML
  v_char   CHAR(1);           -- holds current character in loop
  v_result VARCHAR2(32000);   -- holds result stripped of HTML code 

  not_html BOOLEAN := TRUE; -- toggle when between HTML and non-HTML mode

BEGIN       FOR v_count IN 1 .. length(v_text) LOOP

      v_char := SUBSTR(v_text, v_count, 1); -- get current char

---

• HTML tag starts?

  ---

  IF v_char = '<' THEN not_html := FALSE; END IF;

  ---

• If not HTML build-up result

  ---

  IF not_html THEN v_result := v_result || v_char; END IF;

  ---

• HTML tag end?

  ---

  IF v_char = '>' THEN not_html := TRUE; END IF;

  END LOOP;   RETURN v_result;
END remove_html;

There are a few limitations:

- only works with varchar or char variables
- could be optimised
- doesn't replace <BR> tags with carriage returns
- doesn't deal with nested '<' '>' characters

I hope it helps,

Regards,

Rudi Received on Tue Jul 27 1999 - 08:29:23 CDT