# strip_tags

(PHP 4, PHP 5)

strip_tags — Strip HTML and PHP tags from a string

### Description

string strip_tags ( string `$str` [, string `$allowable_tags` ] )

This function tries to return a string with all HTML and PHP tags stripped from a given `str` . It uses the same tag stripping state machine as the fgetss() function.

### Parameters

`str`

  The input string.

`allowable_tags`

  You can use the optional second parameter to specify tags which should not be stripped.

  > Note: HTML comments are also stripped. This is hardcoded and can not be changed with `allowable_tags` .

### Return Values

Returns the stripped string.

### ChangeLog

Version | Description
--- | ---
5.0.0 | strip_tags() is now binary safe
4.3.0 | HTML comments are now always stripped
4.0.0 | The `allowable_tags` parameter was added

### Examples

Example#1 strip_tags() example

`<?php
$text = '<p>Test paragraph.</p><!-- Comment --> <a href="#fragment">Other text</a>';
echo strip_tags($text);
echo "\n";
// Allow <p> and <a>
echo strip_tags($text, '<p><a>');
?>`

The above example will output:

    Test paragraph. Other text
    <p>Test paragraph.</p> <a href="#fragment">Other text</a>

### Notes

Warning

Because strip_tags() does not actually validate the HTML, partial, or broken tags can result in the removal of more text/data than expected.

Warning

This function does not modify any attributes on the tags that you allow using `allowable_tags` , including the style and onmouseover attributes that a mischievous user may abuse when posting text that will be shown to other users.

### See Also

- htmlspecialchars()