How to read text that is in an html format from a file on a server while keeping the html format

Question

I am trying to set the text of a label to a string that I pull from a text file on a server. The text in this file is in an HTML format. Is there a way to read the text from this file and display it in my label while keeping the HTML format?

For example if in the file there is a line such as <b>hello world!</b> then the label would show hello world! in bold.

Answer 1

NSAttributedText is what you are looking for!

Here is the implementation

NSData *htmlData = [NSData dataWithContentsOfURL:url];
NSAttributedString *attrString = [[NSAttributedString alloc] initWithData:htmlData options:@{NSDocumentTypeDocumentAttribute: NSHTMLTextDocumentType, NSCharacterEncodingDocumentAttribute: @(NSUTF8StringEncoding)} documentAttributes:nil error:nil];

[yourLabel setAttributedText:attrString];

Answer 2

Google has a perfect library for decoding HTML entities.

You can convert html to plain text using another perfect class that extends google's implementation.

If you want a Swift implementation you can create a String extension:

extension String  {
    static func stringByRemovingHTMLEntities(string: String) -> String {
        var result = string

        result = result.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("<p>", withString: "\n\n", options: .CaseInsensitiveSearch, range: nil)
        result = result.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("</p>", withString: "", options: .CaseInsensitiveSearch, range: nil)
        result = result.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("&#8211;", withString: "-", options: .CaseInsensitiveSearch, range: nil)
        result = result.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("&#8220;", withString: "\"", options: .CaseInsensitiveSearch, range: nil)
        result = result.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("&#8221;", withString: "\"", options: .CaseInsensitiveSearch, range: nil)
        result = result.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("<i>", withString: "", options: .CaseInsensitiveSearch, range: nil)
        result = result.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("</i>", withString: "", options: .CaseInsensitiveSearch, range: nil)
        result = result.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("&#38;", withString: "&", options: .CaseInsensitiveSearch, range: nil)
        result = result.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("&#62;", withString: ">", options: .CaseInsensitiveSearch, range: nil)
        result = result.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("&#x27;", withString: "'", options: .CaseInsensitiveSearch, range: nil)
        result = result.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("&#x2F;", withString: "/", options: .CaseInsensitiveSearch, range: nil)
        result = result.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("&quot;", withString: "\"", options: .CaseInsensitiveSearch, range: nil)
        result = result.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("&#60;", withString: "<", options: .CaseInsensitiveSearch, range: nil)
        result = result.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("&lt;", withString: "<", options: .CaseInsensitiveSearch, range: nil)
        result = result.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("&gt;", withString: ">", options: .CaseInsensitiveSearch, range: nil)
        result = result.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("&amp;", withString: "&", options: .CaseInsensitiveSearch, range: nil)
        result = result.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("<pre><code>", withString: "", options: .CaseInsensitiveSearch, range: nil)
        result = result.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("</code></pre>", withString: "", options: .CaseInsensitiveSearch, range: nil)

        var regex = NSRegularExpression(pattern: "<a[^>]+href=\"(.*?)\"[^>]*>.*?</a>",
            options: NSRegularExpressionOptions.CaseInsensitive, error: nil)
        result = regex!.stringByReplacingMatchesInString(result, options: nil, range: NSMakeRange(0, result.utf16Count), withTemplate: "$1")

        return result
    }

    func stringByDecodingHTMLEntities() -> String? {
        var r: NSRange
        let pattern = "<[^>]+>"
        var s = self.stringByDecodingHTMLEscapeCharacters()
        r = (s as NSString).rangeOfString(pattern, options: NSStringCompareOptions.RegularExpressionSearch)
        while (r.location != NSNotFound) {
            s = (s as NSString).stringByReplacingCharactersInRange(r, withString: " ")
            r = (s as NSString).rangeOfString(pattern, options: NSStringCompareOptions.RegularExpressionSearch)
        }
        return s.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("  ", withString: " ")
    }

    func stringByDecodingHTMLEscapeCharacters() -> String {
        var s = self.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("&quot;", withString: "\"")
        s = s.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("&apos;", withString: "'")
        s = s.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("&amp;", withString: "&")
        s = s.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("&lt;", withString: "<")
        s = s.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("&gt;", withString: ">")
        s = s.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("&#39;", withString: "'")
        s = s.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("&ldquot;", withString: "\"")
        s = s.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("&rdquot;", withString: "\"")
        s = s.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("&nbsp;", withString: " ")
        s = s.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("&aacute;", withString: "á")
        s = s.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("&eacute;", withString: "é")
        s = s.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("&iacute;", withString: "í")
        s = s.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("&oacute;", withString: "ó")
        s = s.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("&uacute;", withString: "ú")
        s = s.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("&ntilde;", withString: "ñ")
        s = s.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("&#8217;", withString: "'")

        return s
    }
}