Provided by: libhtml-restrict-perl_3.0.1-1_all 
NAME
HTML::Restrict - Strip unwanted HTML tags and attributes
VERSION
version v3.0.1
SYNOPSIS
use HTML::Restrict;
my $hr = HTML::Restrict->new();
# use default rules to start with (strip away all HTML)
my $processed = $hr->process(' <b>i am bold</b> ');
# $processed now equals: 'i am bold'
# Now, a less restrictive example:
$hr = HTML::Restrict->new(
rules => {
b => [],
img => [qw( src alt / )]
}
);
my $html = q[<body><b>hello</b> <img src="pic.jpg" alt="me" id="test" /></body>];
$processed = $hr->process( $html );
# $processed now equals: <b>hello</b> <img src="pic.jpg" alt="me" />
DESCRIPTION
This module uses HTML::Parser to strip HTML from text in a restrictive manner. By default
all HTML is restricted. You may alter the default behaviour by supplying your own tag
rules.
CONSTRUCTOR AND STARTUP
new()
Creates and returns a new HTML::Restrict object.
my $hr = HTML::Restrict->new()
HTML::Restrict doesn't require any params to be passed to new. If your goal is to remove
all HTML from text, then no further setup is required. Just pass your text to the
process() method and you're done:
my $plain_text = $hr->process( $html );
If you need to set up specific rules, have a look at the params which HTML::Restrict
recognizes:
• "rules => \%rules"
Sets the rules which will be used to process your data. By default all HTML tags are
off limits. Use this argument to define the HTML elements and corresponding
attributes you'd like to use. Essentially, consider the default behaviour to be:
rules => {}
Rules should be passed as a HASHREF of allowed tags. Each hash value should represent
the allowed attributes for the listed tag. For example, if you want to allow a fair
amount of HTML, you can try something like this:
my %rules = (
a => [qw( href target )],
b => [],
caption => [],
center => [],
em => [],
i => [],
img => [qw( alt border height width src style )],
li => [],
ol => [],
p => [qw(style)],
span => [qw(style)],
strong => [],
sub => [],
sup => [],
table => [qw( style border cellspacing cellpadding align )],
tbody => [],
td => [],
tr => [],
u => [],
ul => [],
);
my $hr = HTML::Restrict->new( rules => \%rules )
Or, to allow only bolded text:
my $hr = HTML::Restrict->new( rules => { b => [] } );
Allow bolded text, images and some (but not all) image attributes:
my %rules = (
b => [ ],
img => [qw( src alt width height border / )
);
my $hr = HTML::Restrict->new( rules => \%rules );
Since HTML::Parser treats a closing slash as an attribute, you'll need to add "/" to
your list of allowed attributes if you'd like your tags to retain closing slashes.
For example:
my $hr = HTML::Restrict->new( rules =>{ hr => [] } );
$hr->process( "<hr />"); # returns: <hr>
my $hr = HTML::Restrict->new( rules =>{ hr => [qw( / )] } );
$hr->process( "<hr />"); # returns: <hr />
HTML::Restrict strips away any tags and attributes which are not explicitly allowed.
It also rebuilds your explicitly allowed tags and places their attributes in the order
in which they appear in your rules.
So, if you define the following rules:
my %rules = (
...
img => [qw( src alt title width height id / )]
...
);
then your image tags will all be built like this:
<img src=".." alt="..." title="..." width="..." height="..." id=".." />
This gives you greater consistency in your tag layout. If you don't care about
element order you don't need to pay any attention to this, but you should be aware
that your elements are being reconstructed rather than just stripped down.
As of 2.1.0, you can also specify a regex to be tested against the attribute value.
This feature should be considered experimental for the time being:
my $hr = HTML::Restrict->new(
rules => {
iframe => [
qw( width height allowfullscreen ),
{ src => qr{^http://www\.youtube\.com},
frameborder => qr{^(0|1)$},
}
],
img => [ qw( alt ), { src => qr{^/my/images/} }, ],
},
);
my $html = '<img src="http://www.example.com/image.jpg" alt="Alt Text">';
my $processed = $hr->process( $html );
# $processed now equals: <img alt="Alt Text">
As of 2.3.0, the value to be tested against can also be a code reference. The code
reference will be passed the value of the attribute, and should return either a string
to use for the attribute value, or undef to remove the attribute.
my $hr = HTML::Restrict->new(
rules => {
span => [
{ style => sub {
my $value = shift;
# all colors are orange
$value =~ s/\bcolor\s*:\s*[^;]+/color: orange/g;
return $value;
} }
],
},
);
my $html = '<span style="color: #0000ff;">This is blue</span>';
my $processed = $hr->process( $html );
# $processed now equals: <span style="color: orange;">
• "trim => [0|1]"
By default all leading and trailing spaces will be removed when text is processed.
Set this value to 0 in order to disable this behaviour.
• "uri_schemes => [undef, 'http', 'https', 'irc', ... ]"
As of version 1.0.3, URI scheme checking is performed on all href and src tag
attributes. The following schemes are allowed out of the box. No action is required
on your part:
[ undef, 'http', 'https' ]
(undef represents relative URIs). These restrictions have been put in place to prevent
XSS in the form of:
<a href="javascript:alert(document.cookie)">click for cookie!</a>
See URI for more detailed info on scheme parsing. If, for example, you wanted to
filter out every scheme barring SSL, you would do it like this:
uri_schemes => ['https']
This feature is new in 1.0.3. Previous to this, there was no schema checking at all.
Moving forward, you'll need to whitelist explicitly all URI schemas which are not
supported by default. This is in keeping with the whitelisting behaviour of this
module and is also the safest possible approach. Keep in mind that changes to
uri_schemes are not additive, so you'll need to include the defaults in any changes
you make, should you wish to keep them:
# defaults + irc + mailto
uri_schemes => [ 'undef', 'http', 'https', 'irc', 'mailto' ]
• allow_declaration => [0|1]
Set this value to true if you'd like to allow/preserve DOCTYPE declarations in your
content. Useful when cleaning up your own static files or templates. This feature is
off by default.
my $html = q[<!doctype html><body>foo</body>];
my $hr = HTML::Restrict->new( allow_declaration => 1 );
$html = $hr->process( $html );
# $html is now: "<!doctype html>foo"
• allow_comments => [0|1]
Set this value to true if you'd like to allow/preserve HTML comments in your content.
Useful when cleaning up your own static files or templates. This feature is off by
default.
my $html = q[<body><!-- comments! -->foo</body>];
my $hr = HTML::Restrict->new( allow_comments => 1 );
$html = $hr->process( $html );
# $html is now: "<!-- comments! -->foo"
• replace_img => [0|1|CodeRef]
Set the value to true if you'd like to have img tags replaced with "[IMAGE: ...]"
containing the alt attribute text. If you set it to a code reference, you can provide
your own replacement (which may even contain HTML).
sub replacer {
my ($tagname, $attr, $text) = @_; # from HTML::Parser
return qq{<a href="$attr->{src}">IMAGE: $attr->{alt}</a>};
}
my $hr = HTML::Restrict->new( replace_img => \&replacer );
This attribute will only take effect if the img tag is not included in the allowed
HTML.
• strip_enclosed_content => [0|1]
The default behaviour up to 1.0.4 was to preserve the content between script and style
tags, even when the tags themselves were being deleted. So, you'd be left with a
bunch of JavaScript or CSS, just with the enclosing tags missing. This is almost
never what you want, so starting at 1.0.5 the default will be to remove any script or
style info which is enclosed in these tags, unless they have specifically been
whitelisted in the rules. This will be a sane default when cleaning up content
submitted via a web form. However, if you're using HTML::Restrict to purge your own
HTML you can be more restrictive.
# strip the head section, in addition to JS and CSS
my $html = '<html><head>...</head><body>...<script>JS here</script>foo';
my $hr = HTML::Restrict->new(
strip_enclosed_content => [ 'script', 'style', 'head' ]
);
$html = $hr->process( $html );
# $html is now '<html><body>...foo';
The caveat here is that HTML::Restrict will not try to fix broken HTML. In the above
example, if you have any opening script, style or head tags which don't also include
matching closing tags, all following content will be stripped away, regardless of any
parent tags.
Keep in mind that changes to strip_enclosed_content are not additive, so if you are
adding additional tags you'll need to include the entire list of tags whose enclosed
content you'd like to remove. This feature strips script and style tags by default.
• "filter_text => [0|1|CodeRef]"
By default all text will be filtered to fix any encoding problems which may cause
security issues. You may override the encoding behaviour by providing your own
anonymous sub to "filter_text". This first and only argument to the sub is the text
which needs to be filtered. The sub should return a scalar containing the transformed
text.
filter_text => sub {
my $text = shift;
... # transform text
return $text;
},
You may also this value to 0 in order to disable this behaviour entirely. Please be
advised this is a security risk. Use caution when disabling this parameter or
providing your own filter function.
SUBROUTINES/METHODS
process( $html )
This is the method which does the real work. It parses your data, removes any tags and
attributes which are not specifically allowed and returns the resulting text. Requires
and returns a SCALAR.
get_rules
Accessor which returns a hash ref of the current rule set.
get_uri_schemes
Accessor which returns an array ref of the current valid uri schemes.
CAVEATS
Please note that all tag and attribute names passed via the rules param must be supplied
in lower case.
# correct
my $hr = HTML::Restrict->new( rules => { body => ['onload'] } );
# throws a fatal error
my $hr = HTML::Restrict->new( rules => { Body => ['onLoad'] } );
MOTIVATION
There are already several modules on the CPAN which accomplish much of the same thing, but
after doing a lot of poking around, I was unable to find a solution with a simple setup
which I was happy with.
The most common use case might be stripping HTML from user submitted data completely or
allowing just a few tags and attributes to be displayed. With the exception of URI scheme
checking, this module doesn't do any validation on the actual content of the tags or
attributes. If this is a requirement, you can either mess with the parser object, post-
process the text yourself or have a look at one of the more feature-rich modules in the
SEE ALSO section below.
My aim here is to keep things easy and, hopefully, cover a lot of the less complex use
cases with just a few lines of code and some brief documentation. The idea is to be up
and running quickly.
SEE ALSO
HTML::TagFilter, HTML::Defang, MojoMojo::Declaw, HTML::StripScripts, HTML::Detoxifier,
HTML::Sanitizer, HTML::Scrubber
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to Raybec Communications <http://www.raybec.com> for funding my work on this module
and for releasing it to the world.
Thanks also to the many other contributors.
<https://github.com/oalders/html-restrict/graphs/contributors>
AUTHOR
Olaf Alders <olaf@wundercounter.com>
COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
This software is copyright (c) 2009 by Olaf Alders.
This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as
the Perl 5 programming language system itself.