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6 <meta name="description" content="Explains how to speed up HTML Purifier through caching or inbound filtering." />
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9 <title>Speeding up HTML Purifier - HTML Purifier</title>
11 </head><body>
13 <h1 class="subtitled">Speeding up HTML Purifier</h1>
14 <div class="subtitle">...also known as the HELP ME LIBRARY IS TOO SLOW MY PAGE TAKE TOO LONG page</div>
16 <div id="filing">Filed under End-User</div>
17 <div id="index">Return to the <a href="index.html">index</a>.</div>
18 <div id="home"><a href="http://htmlpurifier.org/">HTML Purifier</a> End-User Documentation</div>
20 <p>HTML Purifier is a very powerful library. But with power comes great
21 responsibility, in the form of longer execution times. Remember, this
22 library isn't lightly grazing over submitted HTML: it's deconstructing
23 the whole thing, rigorously checking the parts, and then putting it back
24 together. </p>
26 <p>So, if it so turns out that HTML Purifier is kinda too slow for outbound
27 filtering, you've got a few options: </p>
29 <h2>Inbound filtering</h2>
31 <p>Perform filtering of HTML when it's submitted by the user. Since the
32 user is already submitting something, an extra half a second tacked on
33 to the load time probably isn't going to be that huge of a problem.
34 Then, displaying the content is a simple a manner of outputting it
35 directly from your database/filesystem. The trouble with this method is
36 that your user loses the original text, and when doing edits, will be
37 handling the filtered text. While this may be a good thing, especially
38 if you're using a WYSIWYG editor, it can also result in data-loss if a
39 user makes a typo. </p>
41 <p>Example (non-functional):</p>
43 <pre>&lt;?php
44 /**
45 * FORM SUBMISSION PAGE
46 * display_error($message) : displays nice error page with message
47 * display_success() : displays a nice success page
48 * display_form() : displays the HTML submission form
49 * database_insert($html) : inserts data into database as new row
51 if (!empty($_POST)) {
52 require_once '/path/to/library/HTMLPurifier.auto.php';
53 require_once 'HTMLPurifier.func.php';
54 $dirty_html = isset($_POST['html']) ? $_POST['html'] : false;
55 if (!$dirty_html) {
56 display_error('You must write some HTML!');
58 $html = HTMLPurifier($dirty_html);
59 database_insert($html);
60 display_success();
61 // notice that $dirty_html is *not* saved
62 } else {
63 display_form();
65 ?&gt;</pre>
67 <h2>Caching the filtered output</h2>
69 <p>Accept the submitted text and put it unaltered into the database, but
70 then also generate a filtered version and stash that in the database.
71 Serve the filtered version to readers, and the unaltered version to
72 editors. If need be, you can invalidate the cache and have the cached
73 filtered version be regenerated on the first page view. Pros? Full data
74 retention. Cons? It's more complicated, and opens other editors up to
75 XSS if they are using a WYSIWYG editor (to fix that, they'd have to be
76 able to get their hands on the *really* original text served in
77 plaintext mode). </p>
79 <p>Example (non-functional):</p>
81 <pre>&lt;?php
82 /**
83 * VIEW PAGE
84 * display_error($message) : displays nice error page with message
85 * cache_get($id) : retrieves HTML from fast cache (db or file)
86 * cache_insert($id, $html) : inserts good HTML into cache system
87 * database_get($id) : retrieves raw HTML from database
89 $id = isset($_GET['id']) ? (int) $_GET['id'] : false;
90 if (!$id) {
91 display_error('Must specify ID.');
92 exit;
94 $html = cache_get($id); // filesystem or database
95 if ($html === false) {
96 // cache didn't have the HTML, generate it
97 $raw_html = database_get($id);
98 require_once '/path/to/library/HTMLPurifier.auto.php';
99 require_once 'HTMLPurifier.func.php';
100 $html = HTMLPurifier($raw_html);
101 cache_insert($id, $html);
103 echo $html;
104 ?&gt;</pre>
106 <h2>Summary</h2>
108 <p>In short, inbound filtering is the simple option and caching is the
109 robust option (albeit with bigger storage requirements). </p>
111 <p>There is a third option, independent of the two we've discussed: profile
112 and optimize HTMLPurifier yourself. Be sure to report back your results
113 if you decide to do that! Especially if you port HTML Purifier to C++.
114 <tt>;-)</tt></p>
116 </body>
117 </html>
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