Check if a text is HTML or not

Question

I am using Meteor and I am trying to check if a text is html. But usual ways do not work. This is my code:

post: function() {
    var postId = Session.get("postId");
    var post = Posts.findOne({
        _id: postId
    });
    var object = new Object();
    if (post) {
        object.title = post.title;
        if ($(post.content).has("p")) { //$(post.content).has("p") / post.content instanceof HTMLElement


            object.text = $(post.content).text();


            if (post.content.match(/<img src="(.*?)"/)) {
                object.image = post.content.match(/<img src="(.*?)"/)[1];
            }
        } else {
            console.log("it is not an html------------------------");
            object.text = post.content;
        }
    }
    return object;
}

Actually, this is the most "working" solution I have used up to now. Also, I pointed out the two most common ways which I use (next to the if statement). Is it possible to happen without regex.

Answer 1

Can use approach you already started with jQuery but append response to a new <div> and check if that element has children. If jQuery finds children it is html.

If it is html you can then search that div for any type of element using find().

// create element and inject content into it
var $div=$('<div>').html(post.content);
// if there are any children it is html
if($div.children().length){
   console.log('this is html');
   var $img = $div.find('img');
   console.log('There are ' + $img.length +' image(s)');
}else{
   console.log('this is not html');
}

Answer 2

Use the jquery $.parseHTML function to parse the string into an array of DOM nodes and check if it has any HTMLElement.

var htmlText = "----<b>abc</b>----<h3>GOOD</h3>----";
htmlText = prompt("Please enter something:", "----<b>abc</b>----");

var htmlArray = $.parseHTML(htmlText);

var isHtml = htmlArray.filter(function(e){ return e instanceof HTMLElement;}).length;

console.log(htmlText);
//console.log(htmlArray);

if (isHtml)
  console.log(isHtml + " HTML Element(s) found.");
else
  console.log("No HTML Elements found!");

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>