Trying to remove html from text with Java

Question

I've got an ArrayList<String> named fields. I'm trying to parse the HTML in each String using the replaceAll function, but I get the feeling that I'm screwing up the regex String (I got the 2nd regex here to represent a generic html expression). Can anyone give me some tips on how to correct myself here?

for(int j = 0; j<fields.size(); j++)    
{
    String k = fields.get(j);
    k.replaceAll("<br>", "\n");
    k.replaceAll("<(\"[^\"]*\"|'[^']*'|[^'\">])*>", "");
    k.replaceAll("&lt;", "<");
    k.replaceAll("&gt;", ">");
    fields.set(j, k);
}

It would be far easier to use something like jsoup. Then you just need to do Jsoup.parse(str).text(); — Vivin Paliath
– Vivin Paliath, Commented Oct 5, 2012 at 21:43

arshajii · Accepted Answer · 2012-10-05 21:42:52Z

4

Remember that strings are immutable, so you want to re-assign k each time you call replaceAll:

String k = fields.get(j);
k = k.replaceAll("<br>", "\n");
...

answered Oct 5, 2012 at 21:42

arshajii

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2 Comments

user1724159 Over a year ago

facepalm You're absolutely correct, thanks. That fixed everything.

Don Roby Over a year ago

No, it didn't fix everything. You're still using regular expressions.

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