NAME

       htmlstrip - Strip HTML markup code

SYNOPSIS

       htmlstrip [-o outputfile] [-O level] [-b blocksize] [-v] [inputfile]

DESCRIPTION

       HTMLstrip reads inputfile or from "stdin" and strips the contained HTML markup. Use this program to
       shrink and compactify your HTML files in a safe way.

   Recognized Content Types
       There are three disjunct types of content which are recognized by HTMLstrip while parsing:

       HTML Tag (tag)
           This is just a single HTML tag, i.e. a string beginning with a opening angle bracket directly
           followed by an identifier, optionally followed by attributes and ending with a closing angle bracket.

       Preformatted (pre)
           This is any contents enclosed in one of the following container tags:

             1. <nostrip>
             2. <pre>
             3. <xmp>

           The non-HTML-3.2-conforming "<nostrip>" tag is special here: It acts like "<pre>" as a protection
           container for HTMLstrip but is also stripped from the output.  Use this as a pseudo-block which just
           preserves its body for the HTMLstrip processing but itself is removed from the output.

       Plain Text (txt)
           This is anything not falling into one of the two other categories, i.e any content both outside of
           preformatted areas and outside of HTML tags.

   Supported Stripping Levels
       The amount of stripping can be controlled by a optimization level, specified via option -O (see below).
       Higher levels also include all of the lower levels. The following stripping is done on each level:

       Level 0:
           No real stripping, just removing the sharp/comment-lines ("#...") [txt,tag].  Such lines are a
           standard feature of WML, so this is always done.

       Level 1:
           Minimal stripping: Same as level 0 plus stripping of blank and empty lines [txt].

       Level 2:
           Good stripping: Same as level 1 plus compression of multiple whitespaces (more then one in sequence)
           to single whitespaces [txt,tag] and stripping of trailing whitespaces at the of of a line
           [txt,tag,pre].

           This level is the default because while providing good optimization the HTML markup is not destroyed
           and remains human readable.

       Level 3:
           Best stripping: Same as level 2 plus stripping of leading whitespaces on a line [txt]. This can also
           be recommended when you still want to make sure that the HTML markup is not destroyed in any case.
           But the resulting code is a little bit ugly because of the removed whitespaces.

       Level 4:
           Expert stripping:  Same as level 3 plus stripping of HTML comment lines (``"<!-- ... -->"'') and
           crunching of HTML tag endsi [tag]. BE CAREFUL HERE: Comment lines are widely used for hiding some
           Java or JavaScript code for browsers which are not capable of ignoring those stuff.  When using this
           optimization level make sure all your JavaScript code is hided correctly by adding HTMLstrip's
           "<nostrip>" tags around the comment delimiters.

       Level 5:
           Crazy stripping: Same as level 4 plus wrapping lines around to fit in an 80 column view window. This
           saves some newlines but both leads to really unreadable markup code and opens the window for a lot of
           problems when this code is used to layout the page in a browser. Use with care. This is only
           experimental!

       Additionally the following global strippings are done:

       "^\n":
           A leading newline is always stripped.

       "<suck>":
           The "<suck>" tag just absorbs itself and all whitespaces around it.  This is like the backslash for
           line-continuation, but is done in Pass 8, i.e.  really at the end. Use this inside HTML tag
           definitions to absorb whitespaces, for instance around %body when used inside "<table>" structures
           which at some point are newline-sensitive in Netscape Navigator.

OPTIONS

       -o outputfile
           This redirects the output to outputfile. Usually the output will be send to "stdout" if no such
           option is specified or outputfile is ""-"".

       -O level
           This sets the optimization/stripping level, i.e. how much HTMLstrip should compress the contents.

       -b blocksize
           For efficiency reasons, input is divided into blocks of 16384 chars.  If you have some performance
           problems, you may try to change this value.  Any value between 1024 and 32766 is allowed.  With a
           value of 0, input is not divided into blocks.

       -v  This sets verbose mode where some processing information will be given on the console.

AUTHORS

        Ralf S. Engelschall
        rse@engelschall.com
        www.engelschall.com

        Denis Barbier
        barbier@engelschall.com