Setting regular expression to test input text which contain HTML markup

Question

I am trying to create a pattern to prevent user inputs from HTML mark up. I created this patten

var htmlTagRegex = /^<+[a-z]+>/;

which only works when the input starts with html tag for example:

<br /> Test
<p> Test
<div> Test

but in case of having an input like below

Test <br /> 
Test <p> 
Test <div>

the pattern not working (probably because of /^). How can I write the pattern to consider any html tag contains?

watch out for escaped entries as well: owasp.org/index.php/XSS_Filter_Evasion_Cheat_Sheet — dandavis
– dandavis, Commented Nov 20, 2014 at 5:31

vks · Accepted Answer · 2014-11-20 05:18:15Z

1

^(?=.*(?:<[^>]+>)).*$

You can use this to detect html markers.See demo.

http://regex101.com/r/lZ5mN8/43

answered Nov 20, 2014 at 5:18

vks

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7 Comments

dandavis Over a year ago

if i want to be nit-pickey, "5 < 7 || 4 > 2" still matches, as do HTML comments... but yeah, namespaced custom elements work, so this ain't bad, and likely plenty.

Mona Coder Over a year ago

@dandavis, is there any way to exclude numbers from pattern?

Mona Coder Over a year ago

well I update you code as ^(?=.*(?:<[^\d>]+>)).*$ and now if you put <div id="3"> it passes as can not find any match! can you please test this?

Mona Coder Over a year ago

same! still passing them trough!

Mona Coder Over a year ago

Thats exactly what I am saying! there is no match with html while <div id="3"> is absolutely HTML!

|

Avinash Raj · Accepted Answer · 2014-11-20 05:35:44Z

0

now my question is can you please let me know how to power the pattern to consider any html tag contains?

<\w+\b[^<>]*>

For matching custom tags,

<[^<>]+>

To match the whole line which contains the tag. You don't need to go for lookaround assertions.

^.*?<[^<>]+>.*$

DEMO

edited Nov 20, 2014 at 5:35

answered Nov 20, 2014 at 5:19

Avinash Raj

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3 Comments

Avinash Raj Over a year ago

could you provide an example?

dandavis Over a year ago

that doesn't match <custom-tags>

Avinash Raj Over a year ago

is html contains custom tags?

Birlla · Accepted Answer · 2014-11-21 13:30:42Z

0

Just for your information

In jQuery, If you want extract text alone without html markup , then you can use pattern like this

$("<div/>").html("#elementId").text()

answered Nov 21, 2014 at 13:30

Birlla

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