WireTextTools

markupToText($str, $options)

Convert HTML to readable plain text. More useful than strip_tags(): handles paragraph separation, list bullets, headline formatting, and entity conversion.

$text = $tools->markupToText($html);
$text = $tools->markupToText($html, ['linksToMarkdown' => true]);
$text = $tools->markupToText($html, ['keepTags' => ['em', 'strong']]);

Options:

collapse($str, $options)

Flatten HTML or multiline text into a single-line plain-text string.

$oneLine = $tools->collapse($multiLineText);
$oneLine = $tools->collapse($html, ['collapseLinesWith' => ' | ']);

truncate($str, $maxLength, $options)

Truncate a string without breaking words, with intelligent fallback through truncation types: block → sentence → punctuation → word.

$s = $tools->truncate($str, 150);                          // word boundary
$s = $tools->truncate($str, 300, 'sentence');              // sentence boundary
$s = $tools->truncate($html, 200, ['visible' => true]);    // count visible chars only
$s = $tools->truncate($str, ['type' => 'block', 'maxLength' => 500, 'more' => ' […]']);

The type specifies the preferred truncation point. If a match can't be found within maxLength, it falls back to the next simpler type automatically.

The visible option is particularly useful when truncating HTML — without it, markup characters count toward maxLength even though they're not visible to readers.

populatePlaceholders($str, $vars, $options)

Replace {placeholder} tags with values. When $vars is a Page, subfield and OR-tag syntax are supported.

// Array vars
$result = $tools->populatePlaceholders('Hello {first_name}!', ['first_name' => 'Ryan']);

// Page vars — subfields and OR tags work
$result = $tools->populatePlaceholders('{title} by {author.name}', $page);
$result = $tools->populatePlaceholders('{display_name|title|name}', $page); // OR: first non-empty

{field1|field2|field3} with a Page object returns the first non-empty value among the listed fields — useful as a fallback chain.

When $vars is a Page and allowMarkup is true, $page->getMarkup($field) is called (formatted output). Use 'allowMarkup' => false to get $page->getText($field).

findPlaceholders($str, $options)

Find all {placeholder} tags in a string.

$tags = $tools->findPlaceholders('Hello {name}, welcome to {site}');
// ['name' => '{name}', 'site' => '{site}']

$has = $tools->findPlaceholders($str, ['has' => true]); // bool

hasPlaceholders($str)

Returns true if the string contains any {placeholder} tags.

diffMarkup($old, $new, $options)

Generate an HTML diff showing insertions and deletions between two strings.

$diff = $tools->diffMarkup('The quick brown fox', 'The slow brown fox');
// "The <del>quick</del> <ins>slow</ins> brown fox"

findReplaceEscapeChars(&$str, $escapeChars, $options)

Temporarily replace backslash-escaped characters with placeholders so processing steps don't misinterpret literal characters. Restore them by replacing the returned map.

$str = 'Hello \*world\*';
$placeholders = $tools->findReplaceEscapeChars($str, ['*']);
// ... process $str ...
$str = str_replace(array_keys($placeholders), array_values($placeholders), $str);

The returned map is keyed by generated placeholder and valued by the escaped character. The map is per escaped character in $escapeChars, not necessarily per occurrence, so repeated escaped \* characters can share one placeholder.

Useful options: