html in database string

[UKSBD]

I allow HTML in one of the field/strings in a database.
Is there a way of pulling only a certain ammount of chacaters without it
causing a problem if it breaks half way through HTML code?

Using classic .ASP MySQL

[FireFleur]

Not without another mechanism coded to sort out that problem.

You could do it this way though:

create table p {
id BIGINT PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT,
value TEXT
}

then you pull as many characters as you like, but supply the start and end tag.

select '<p>' || substring( p.value, from 1, for 255 ) || '</p>' from p where id = 1;

|| is a concatenation, and the syntax is postgresql but you should be able to translate into whatever.

If a value contains HTML markup though, then it may still not work. You would need the value to be text, etc. You could filter after perhaps, or build a function to scan for markup and drop it.

[Astaroth]

Are you allowing all types of HTML or only certain tags like <h1> and <b> etc?

If you are allowing a totally free hand then it is going to be difficult to pull out only the first X characters and ensure that it still displays correctly etc as you may pull out half the first row of a table etc.

Is the intention to give a summary? if it is then generally would strip all HTML from it and have it as plain text or allow users to write their own summary and only allow basic HTML tags

[UKSBD]

Yes it is all HTML
I was wondering if it is possible to pull it from the database as a html page
but then copy as plain text and create a 2nd field/string in the database, then use some of that for a summary.

I.e
as though right clicking over the text and copying, so it copies as plain
text even thoufg there are links in the text.

Is that possible?

[FireFleur]

You could use a regexp to take out any tags.

s/<[^>]*>//g

asp should have a regex replace function (you may need to change the syntax a little).

Effectively you filter it in the database or via asp, whichever you find easier, database would probably be a little quicker though.

[Astaroth]

Would agree with FireFleur though as you are removing all tags if the user has included tabled info/ data then it will appear as a continuous string without the tags