Here is a UDF (user defined function) to strip off html tags from a string in MS SQL.

CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[StripHtmlTags]
(
– Add the parameters for the function here
@HTMLText NVARCHAR(MAX)
)
RETURNS NVARCHAR(MAX)
AS
BEGIN

DECLARE @Start INT
DECLARE @End INT
DECLARE @Length INT

SET @Start = CHARINDEX(‘<’,@HTMLText)
SET @End = CHARINDEX(‘>’,@HTMLText,CHARINDEX(‘<’,@HTMLText))
SET @Length = (@End – @Start) + 1

WHILE @Start > 0 AND @End > 0 AND @Length > 0
BEGIN
SET @HTMLText = STUFF(@HTMLText,@Start,@Length,”)
SET @Start = CHARINDEX(‘<’,@HTMLText)
SET @End = CHARINDEX(‘>’,@HTMLText,CHARINDEX(‘<’,@HTMLText))
SET @Length = (@End – @Start) + 1
END

RETURN LTRIM(RTRIM(@HTMLText))

END

Example Use:

Execute StripHtmlTags('my <b>html filled</b> string');

Note: The use of MAX is allowed on MS SQL 2005 or newer versions of MS SQL servers. To use it with MS SQL versions older then 2005 (e.g. 2000) replace the MAX with a number for example 1500.