<?php
/*
* Common functions
*/

function rip_tags($string) { 
    return preg_replace('/\s+/', ' ', preg_replace('/<[^>]*>/', ' ', $string));
}

// -------------------------------------------------------------- 

function rip_tags_extended($string) { 
    
    // ----- remove HTML TAGs ----- 
    $string = preg_replace ('/<[^>]*>/', ' ', $string); 
    
    // ----- remove control characters ----- 
    $string = str_replace("\r", '', $string);    // --- replace with empty space
    $string = str_replace("\n", ' ', $string);   // --- replace with space
    $string = str_replace("\t", ' ', $string);   // --- replace with space
    
    // ----- remove multiple spaces ----- 
    $string = trim(preg_replace('/ {2,}/', ' ', $string));
    
    return $string; 

}

// -------------------------------------------------------------- 
?>