🧹 Universal HTML Tag Cleaner for OpenCart/ocStore

English | Українська (детально)

A powerful tool for automatically removing HTML tags from description fields in OpenCart/ocStore databases. Supports both simple tags and complex selectors with attributes.

📋 Table of Contents

• Features
• Requirements
• Installation
• Usage
• Tag Syntax
• Examples
• Security
• Technical Details
• Troubleshooting
• License

✨ Features

• 🎯 Flexible Search: Support for simple tags and complex selectors with attributes
• 🔍 Two-Step Process: Scan first, then clean
• 📊 Detailed Statistics: Complete report for each table and column
• 👁️ Preview Changes: See before/after examples before applying
• ✅ Selective Cleaning: Choose specific tables to process
• 🚀 Batch Processing: Efficient handling of large datasets
• 🎨 Modern Interface: Intuitive web-based UI
• 🔐 Auto-Configuration: Reads settings from config.php
• 🌐 Ukrainian Localization: Fully localized Ukrainian interface

📦 Requirements

• PHP 7.0 or higher
• MySQL 5.6+ / MariaDB 10.0+
• PDO PHP extension
• OpenCart / ocStore 2.x, 3.x or 4.x
• Database access rights (SELECT, UPDATE)

🚀 Installation

Step 1: Download the file

1. Download html_tag_cleaner.php
2. Place it in the root directory of your OpenCart/ocStore installation (where config.php is located)

/public_html/
├── admin/
├── catalog/
├── system/
├── config.php          ← must be here
├── index.php
└── html_tag_cleaner.php ← place file here

Step 2: Set permissions

chmod 644 html_tag_cleaner.php

Step 3: Create database backup

⚠️ MANDATORY! Create a database backup before using:

mysqldump -u username -p database_name > backup_$(date +%Y%m%d_%H%M%S).sql

Or via phpMyAdmin: Export → Go

📖 Usage

Basic Workflow

1. Access the script

   https://your-domain.com/html_tag_cleaner.php
   

2. Specify tags to remove

   • Enter tags in the field (comma-separated)
   • Or use ready-made templates

3. Scan database

   • Click "🔍 Scan Database"
   • Review scan results
   • Check change examples

4. Select tables

   • All found tables are selected by default
   • You can choose specific tables to process
   • Use "Select All" / "Deselect All" buttons

5. Clean

   • Click "🚀 Start Cleaning"
   • Confirm action
   • Wait for completion

6. Review report

   • Check processing statistics
   • Review number of updated records

7. Delete script

   • Always delete the file after use!

Interface

Tag Input Field

Specify HTML tags (comma-separated):
┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
│ span, strong, em, font              │
└─────────────────────────────────────┘

Quick Templates

• 🎨 Colored spans - span[style*="color"]
• 📝 Text formatting - span, strong, em, b, i, u
• 🔤 Old font tags - font
• 📦 Block elements - div, p

🎯 Tag Syntax

1. Simple Tags

Removes all occurrences of a tag, keeping content:

span

Result: <span>text</span> → text

2. Multiple Tags

Removes several different tags:

span, strong, em, b, i

3. Tags with Exact Attribute Match

Removes only tags with specific attribute value:

span[style="color: red"]

Result:

• <span style="color: red">text</span> → text ✅
• <span style="color: blue">text</span> → remains ❌

4. Tags with Partial Attribute Match (Wildcard)

Removes tags where attribute contains specified text:

span[style*="color"]

Result:

• <span style="color: red">text</span> → text ✅
• <span style="background-color: blue">text</span> → text ✅
• <span style="font-size: 14px">text</span> → remains ❌

5. Complex Combinations

span[style*="color"], span[class="highlight"], strong, em

💡 Examples

Example 1: Remove colored span tags

Problem: After import, product descriptions contain <span style="color: #ff0000"> tags

Solution:

span[style*="color"]

Before:

<p>This product is <span style="color: red">high quality</span> and available</p>

After:

<p>This product is high quality and available</p>

Example 2: Remove all formatting

Problem: Need to remove all text formatting

Solution:

span, strong, em, b, i, u, font

Before:

<p><strong>Important!</strong> This product is <em>very</em> <u>good</u></p>

After:

<p>Important! This product is very good</p>

Example 3: Remove font tags from old descriptions

Problem: Database contains outdated <font> tags

Solution:

font

Before:

<font face="Arial" size="3" color="black">Product description</font>

After:

Product description

Example 4: Remove specific class

Problem: After copying from Word, special spans with classes remain

Solution:

span[class="mso"]

🔒 Security

Security Recommendations

1. Backup

   # Create backup before EVERY use
   mysqldump -u user -p database > backup.sql

2. Access Restriction

   # .htaccess - restrict access by IP
   <Files "html_tag_cleaner.php">
       Order Deny,Allow
       Deny from all
       Allow from 192.168.1.100
   </Files>

3. Delete after use

   # Delete file immediately after completion
   rm html_tag_cleaner.php

4. Use in dev environment

   • Test on a site copy first
   • Verify results on test data
   • Only then use on production

Built-in Protection

The script has built-in safety mechanisms:

• ✅ Action validation (only 'scan' and 'clean')
• ✅ PDO with prepared statements (SQL injection protection)
• ✅ HTML escaping in output
• ✅ Transactions for batch processing
• ✅ Error handling with rollback

🔧 Technical Details

Supported Tables

The script automatically finds ALL tables containing columns with *description* in the name:

Typical OpenCart tables:

• oc_product_description
• oc_category_description
• oc_information_description
• oc_attribute_description
• oc_option_description
• oc_option_value_description
• and others...

Prefix Support

Automatically detects table prefixes:

• oc_ (standard OpenCart)
• ocs_ (ocStore)
• Any other custom prefix

Primary Key Handling

Works correctly with:

• Simple PRIMARY KEY
• Composite (multi-column) keys
• UNIQUE keys
• Tables without primary keys

Batch Processing

$BATCH_SIZE = 100; // records per batch

Benefits:

• Reduced database load
• Lower memory usage
• Rollback capability on errors

Tag Removal Algorithm

1. HTML decode (convert &lt; to <)
2. Apply regex patterns
3. Iterative removal (up to 10 passes)
4. HTML encode back

🐛 Troubleshooting

Error: "config.php file not found"

Solution: Place html_tag_cleaner.php in the same folder where config.php is located

✅ Correct:
/public_html/config.php
/public_html/html_tag_cleaner.php

❌ Incorrect:
/public_html/config.php
/public_html/admin/html_tag_cleaner.php

Database connection error

Solution: Check database user permissions:

GRANT SELECT, UPDATE ON database_name.* TO 'user'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Not finding records with tags

Possible causes:

1. Tags specified with < > - specify without them: span, not <span>
2. Case matters for attributes: style*="Color" ≠ style*="color"
3. Spaces in tags: span[style*="color"] ✅ vs span[ style*="color" ] ❌

Slow performance

Optimization:

1. Increase $BATCH_SIZE in code (line 407):

   $BATCH_SIZE = 500; // instead of 100

2. Process tables in portions (select not all at once)
3. Add indexes on description columns (optional)

Memory limit error

Solution: Increase memory limit in php.ini:

memory_limit = 512M

Or in code (add at the beginning):

ini_set('memory_limit', '512M');

📊 Statistics & Reporting

Scan Report Format

✓ Scanning completed!
Search tags: span[style*="color"]

┌─────────────────────────┐
│ Tables found:        5  │
│ Records to process: 234 │
└─────────────────────────┘

📋 oc_product_description
  └─ description: 127 records contain specified tags
     👁️ Change example (first record)
     
📋 oc_category_description
  └─ description: 45 records contain specified tags

Clean Report Format

✅ Cleaning completed successfully!

┌───────────────────────┐
│ Processed:    234     │
│ Updated:      234     │
│ Time:         2.45 sec│
└───────────────────────┘

Report:
📋 oc_product_description
  └─ description: Processed: 127, Updated: 127

🎨 Customization

Change Batch Size

// Line 407
$BATCH_SIZE = 100; // change to desired value

Add Custom Templates

// Add in HTML after existing templates:
<button type="button" onclick="applyTemplate('your, tags, here')" class="template-btn">
    🎯 Your Template
</button>

Change Design

All styles are in the <style> section. Modify CSS variables:

:root {
    --primary: #6366f1;        /* Primary color */
    --success: #10b981;        /* Success color */
    --danger: #ef4444;         /* Error color */
}

📝 FAQ

Q: Is tag content deleted?
A: No, only the tags themselves are removed. Content remains.

Q: Can changes be undone?
A: No, so always make a backup before use.

Q: How many records can be processed at once?
A: Virtually unlimited, thanks to batch processing. Tested on 50000+ records.

Q: Does it work with Cyrillic?
A: Yes, full UTF-8 support.

Q: Can it be used on shared hosting?
A: Yes, if you have PDO access and UPDATE rights in the database.

Q: Is it safe to use on production?
A: Yes, but only after testing on a dev copy and creating a backup.

🤝 Contributing

If you found a bug or have ideas for improvement:

1. Create an Issue with detailed description
2. Or submit a Pull Request with fixes
3. Share your experience

📄 License

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2026

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT ANY WARRANTIES.

⚠️ Disclaimer

• Author is not responsible for data loss
• Always make a backup before use
• Test in dev environment before production
• Use at your own risk

📞 Support

If you need help:

• 🐛 Create an Issue for bugs
• 💡 Create a Discussion for questions
• ⭐ Star the project if it's useful!

---

Made with ❤️ for OpenCart/ocStore community

Last updated: February 2026