To remove special characters like <p>, <li> - php

Question

I want to display content on client side. The problem is that I am getting output like this -
<p> Aliette is a systemic fungicide effective against Oomcytes fungi like downy mildew
diseases of grapes and damping off and Azhukal diseases of cardamom.</p> <span> Despite
its extensive use since 1978, there is no report of resistance development in fungus.
True systemic action makes application of Aliette as the best prophylactic solution for
downy mildew control in grape.</span>
Now I want to remove those special characters i.e <p>,</p>, <span>, </span>
Value stored in database is description = "<p> test <p>";
$sel_pro = "select * from bayer_product where product_group like '%".$_REQUEST['searchfield']."%'";
$res_pro = mysql_query($sel_pro);
$num_pro = mysql_num_rows($res_pro);
while($row_pro = mysql_fetch_assoc($res_pro))
{
echo $desc = strip_tags($row_pro['description']);
}

Answer 1

If they are tags then you can use strip_tags().
$text = '<p>Test paragraph.</p><!-- Comment --> Other text';
echo strip_tags($text);
// Allow <p> and <a>
echo strip_tags($text, '<p><a>');
the outputs will be
Test paragraph. Other text //strip all tags
<p>Test paragraph.</p> Other text //strip all tags except <p> & <a>

Answer 2

For clean all html tags in text use strip_tags() function. Usage you can see in the docs. If you need to clean all tags, except few that you need - simply put "allowable_tags" param.
http://www.nusphere.com/kb/phpmanual/function.strip-tags.htm

Answer 3

Use PHP function strip_tags for remove tag
<?php
$text = '<p> Aliette is a systemic fungicide effective against Oomcytes fungi like downy mildew
diseases of grapes and damping off and Azhukal diseases of cardamom.</p> <span> Despite
its extensive use since 1978, there is no report of resistance development in fungus.
True systemic action makes application of Aliette as the best prophylactic solution for
downy mildew control in grape.</span>';
echo strip_tags($text);
echo "\n";
// Autorise <p> et <a>
echo strip_tags($text, '<p><span>');
?>