Convert HTML to plain text in Java

Question

I need to convert HTML to plain text. My only requirement of formatting is to retain new lines in the plain text. New lines should be displayed not only in the case of <

Answer 1

Have your parser append text content and newlines to a StringBuilder.

final StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
HTMLEditorKit.ParserCallback parserCallback = new HTMLEditorKit.ParserCallback() {
    public boolean readyForNewline;

    @Override
    public void handleText(final char[] data, final int pos) {
        String s = new String(data);
        sb.append(s.trim());
        readyForNewline = true;
    }

    @Override
    public void handleStartTag(final HTML.Tag t, final MutableAttributeSet a, final int pos) {
        if (readyForNewline && (t == HTML.Tag.DIV || t == HTML.Tag.BR || t == HTML.Tag.P)) {
            sb.append("\n");
            readyForNewline = false;
        }
    }

    @Override
    public void handleSimpleTag(final HTML.Tag t, final MutableAttributeSet a, final int pos) {
        handleStartTag(t, a, pos);
    }
};
new ParserDelegator().parse(new StringReader(html), parserCallback, false);