Sanitize¶ ↑

Sanitize is a whitelist-based HTML sanitizer. Given a list of acceptable elements and attributes, Sanitize will remove all unacceptable HTML from a string.

Using a simple configuration syntax, you can tell Sanitize to allow certain elements, certain attributes within those elements, and even certain URL protocols within attributes that contain URLs. Any HTML elements or attributes that you don’t explicitly allow will be removed.

Because it’s based on Nokogiri, a full-fledged HTML parser, rather than a bunch of fragile regular expressions, Sanitize has no trouble dealing with malformed or maliciously-formed HTML, and will always output valid HTML or XHTML.

Author

Ryan Grove ([email protected])

Version

2.0.3 (2011-07-01)

Copyright

Copyright © 2011 Ryan Grove. All rights reserved.

License

MIT License (opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php)

Website

github.com/rgrove/sanitize

Requires¶ ↑

• Nokogiri >= 1.4.4

• libxml2 >= 2.7.2

Installation¶ ↑

Latest stable release:

gem install sanitize

Latest development version:

gem install sanitize --pre

Usage¶ ↑

If you don’t specify any configuration options, Sanitize will use its strictest settings by default, which means it will strip all HTML and leave only text behind.

require 'rubygems'
require 'sanitize'

html = '<b><a href="http://foo.com/">foo</a></b><img src="http://foo.com/bar.jpg">'

Sanitize.clean(html) # => 'foo'

Configuration¶ ↑

In addition to the ultra-safe default settings, Sanitize comes with three other built-in modes.

Sanitize::Config::RESTRICTED¶ ↑

Allows only very simple inline formatting markup. No links, images, or block elements.

Sanitize.clean(html, Sanitize::Config::RESTRICTED) # => '<b>foo</b>'

Sanitize::Config::BASIC¶ ↑

Allows a variety of markup including formatting tags, links, and lists. Images and tables are not allowed, links are limited to FTP, HTTP, HTTPS, and mailto protocols, and a rel="nofollow" attribute is added to all links to mitigate SEO spam.

Sanitize.clean(html, Sanitize::Config::BASIC)
# => '<b><a href="http://foo.com/" rel="nofollow">foo</a></b>'

Sanitize::Config::RELAXED¶ ↑

Allows an even wider variety of markup than BASIC, including images and tables. Links are still limited to FTP, HTTP, HTTPS, and mailto protocols, while images are limited to HTTP and HTTPS. In this mode, rel="nofollow" is not added to links.

Sanitize.clean(html, Sanitize::Config::RELAXED)
# => '<b><a href="http://foo.com/">foo</a></b><img src="http://foo.com/bar.jpg">'

Custom Configuration¶ ↑

If the built-in modes don’t meet your needs, you can easily specify a custom configuration:

Sanitize.clean(html, :elements => ['a', 'span'],
    :attributes => {'a' => ['href', 'title'], 'span' => ['class']},
    :protocols => {'a' => {'href' => ['http', 'https', 'mailto']}})

:add_attributes (Hash)¶ ↑

Attributes to add to specific elements. If the attribute already exists, it will be replaced with the value specified here. Specify all element names and attributes in lowercase.

:add_attributes => {
  'a' => {'rel' => 'nofollow'}
}

:attributes (Hash)¶ ↑

Attributes to allow for specific elements. Specify all element names and attributes in lowercase.

:attributes => {
  'a'          => ['href', 'title'],
  'blockquote' => ['cite'],
  'img'        => ['alt', 'src', 'title']
}

If you’d like to allow certain attributes on all elements, use the symbol :all instead of an element name.

:attributes => {
  :all => ['class'],
  'a'  => ['href', 'title']
}

:allow_comments (boolean)¶ ↑

Whether or not to allow HTML comments. Allowing comments is strongly discouraged, since IE allows script execution within conditional comments. The default value is false.

:elements (Array)¶ ↑

Array of element names to allow. Specify all names in lowercase.

:elements => %w[
  a abbr b blockquote br cite code dd dfn dl dt em i kbd li mark ol p pre
  q s samp small strike strong sub sup time u ul var
]

:output (Symbol)¶ ↑

Output format. Supported formats are :html and :xhtml, defaulting to :html.

:output_encoding (String)¶ ↑

Character encoding to use for HTML output. Default is utf-8.

:protocols (Hash)¶ ↑

URL protocols to allow in specific attributes. If an attribute is listed here and contains a protocol other than those specified (or if it contains no protocol at all), it will be removed.

:protocols => {
  'a'   => {'href' => ['ftp', 'http', 'https', 'mailto']},
  'img' => {'src'  => ['http', 'https']}
}

If you’d like to allow the use of relative URLs which don’t have a protocol, include the symbol :relative in the protocol array:

:protocols => {
  'a' => {'href' => ['http', 'https', :relative]}
}

:remove_contents (boolean or Array)¶ ↑

If set to true, Sanitize will remove the contents of any non-whitelisted elements in addition to the elements themselves. By default, Sanitize leaves the safe parts of an element’s contents behind when the element is removed.

If set to an array of element names, then only the contents of the specified elements (when filtered) will be removed, and the contents of all other filtered elements will be left behind.

The default value is false.

:transformers¶ ↑

Custom transformer or array of custom transformers to run using depth-first traversal. See the Transformers section below for details.

:transformers_breadth¶ ↑

Custom transformer or array of custom transformers to run using breadth-first traversal. See the Transformers section below for details.

:whitespace_elements (Array)¶ ↑

Array of lowercase element names that should be replaced with whitespace when removed in order to preserve readability. For example, foo<div>bar</div>baz will become foo bar baz when the <div> is removed.

By default, the following elements are included in the :whitespace_elements array:

address article aside blockquote br dd div dl dt footer h1 h2 h3 h4 h5
h6 header hgroup hr li nav ol p pre section ul

Transformers¶ ↑

Transformers allow you to filter and modify nodes using your own custom logic, on top of (or instead of) Sanitize’s core filter. A transformer is any object that responds to call() (such as a lambda or proc).

To use one or more transformers, pass them to the :transformers config setting. You may pass a single transformer or an array of transformers.

Sanitize.clean(html, :transformers => [transformer_one, transformer_two])

Input¶ ↑

Each registered transformer’s call() method will be called once for each node in the HTML (including elements, text nodes, comments, etc.), and will receive as an argument an environment Hash that contains the following items:

:config

The current Sanitize configuration Hash.

:is_whitelisted

true if the current node has been whitelisted by a previous transformer, false otherwise. It’s generally bad form to remove a node that a previous transformer has whitelisted.

:node

A Nokogiri::XML::Node object representing an HTML node. The node may be an element, a text node, a comment, a CDATA node, or a document fragment. Use Nokogiri’s inspection methods (element?, text?, etc.) to selectively ignore node types you aren’t interested in.

:node_name

The name of the current HTML node, always lowercase (e.g. “div” or “span”). For non-element nodes, the name will be something like “text”, “comment”, “#cdata-section”, “#document-fragment”, etc.

:node_whitelist

Set of Nokogiri::XML::Node objects in the current document that have been whitelisted by previous transformers, if any. It’s generally bad form to remove a node that a previous transformer has whitelisted.

:traversal_mode

Current node traversal mode, either :depth for depth-first (the default mode) or :breadth for breadth-first.

Output¶ ↑

A transformer doesn’t have to return anything, but may optionally return a Hash, which may contain the following items:

:node_whitelist

Array or Set of specific Nokogiri::XML::Node objects to add to the document’s whitelist, bypassing the current Sanitize config. These specific nodes and all their attributes will be whitelisted, but their children will not be.

If a transformer returns anything other than a Hash, the return value will be ignored.

Processing¶ ↑

Each transformer has full access to the Nokogiri::XML::Node that’s passed into it and to the rest of the document via the node’s document() method. Any changes made to the current node or to the document will be reflected instantly in the document and passed on to subsequently-called transformers and to Sanitize itself. A transformer may even call Sanitize internally to perform custom sanitization if needed.

Nodes are passed into transformers in the order in which they’re traversed. By default, depth-first traversal is used, meaning that markup is traversed from the deepest node upward (not from the first node to the last node):

html        = '<div><span>foo</span></div>'
transformer = lambda{|env| puts env[:node_name] }

# Prints "text", "span", "div", "#document-fragment".
Sanitize.clean(html, :transformers => transformer)

You may use the :transformers_breadth config to specify one or more transformers that should traverse nodes in breadth-first mode:

html        = '<div><span>foo</span></div>'
transformer = lambda{|env| puts env[:node_name] }

# Prints "#document-fragment", "div", "span", "text".
Sanitize.clean(html, :transformers_breadth => transformer)

Transformers have a tremendous amount of power, including the power to completely bypass Sanitize’s built-in filtering. Be careful! Your safety is in your own hands.

Example: Transformer to whitelist YouTube video embeds¶ ↑

The following example demonstrates how to create a depth-first Sanitize transformer that will safely whitelist valid YouTube video embeds without having to blindly allow other kinds of embedded content, which would be the case if you tried to do this by just whitelisting all <iframe> elements:

lambda do |env|
  node      = env[:node]
  node_name = env[:node_name]

  # Don't continue if this node is already whitelisted or is not an element.
  return if env[:is_whitelisted] || !node.element?

  # Don't continue unless the node is an iframe.
  return unless node_name == 'iframe'

  # Verify that the video URL is actually a valid YouTube video URL.
  return unless node['src'] =~ /\Ahttp:\/\/(?:www\.)?youtube\.com\//

  # We're now certain that this is a YouTube embed, but we still need to run
  # it through a special Sanitize step to ensure that no unwanted elements or
  # attributes that don't belong in a YouTube embed can sneak in.
  Sanitize.clean_node!(node.parent, {
    :elements => %w[iframe],

    :attributes => {
      'iframe'  => %w[allowfullscreen frameborder height src width]
    }
  })

  # Now that we're sure that this is a valid YouTube embed and that there are
  # no unwanted elements or attributes hidden inside it, we can tell Sanitize
  # to whitelist the current node.
  {:node_whitelist => [node]}
end

Contributors¶ ↑

Sanitize was created and is maintained by Ryan Grove ([email protected]).

The following lovely people have also contributed to Sanitize:

• Wilson Bilkovich ([email protected])

• Peter Cooper ([email protected])

• Gabe da Silveira ([email protected])

• Nicholas Evans ([email protected])

• Adam Hooper ([email protected])

• Mutwin Kraus ([email protected])

• Eaden McKee ([email protected])

• Dev Purkayastha ([email protected])

• David Reese ([email protected])

• Ardie Saeidi ([email protected])

• Rafael Souza ([email protected])

• Ben Wanicur ([email protected])

License¶ ↑

Copyright © 2011 Ryan Grove ([email protected])

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the ‘Software’), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ‘AS IS’, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.