NAME

       htmlstrip - Strip HTML markup code

SYNOPSIS

       htmlstrip [-o outputfile] [-O level] [-b blocksize] [-v] [--nosharp] [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 unless --nosharp was
           given.

       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