View the original community article here
Last tested: July 2020
Explanation
It is not possible to render HTML tags from the database, mostly because it opens up security risks. The html will just be displayed as plaintext.
The only html that will be rendered is html that a developer writes in LookML. The html docs explain what can be written into LookML.
Using Links is OK
If you have a URL in your database, it can be exposed as a link in Looker with this syntax:
link: {
label: "{{ value }}"
url: "{{ value }}"
}
or alternatively
html: <a href="https://{{ value }}">text you want</a>;;
Novel workaround
There is a novel workaround by formatting links in the database as markdown [Link_text](url) and then using liquid to parse them out. This allows multiple links and other text to be included as well.
dimension: field_name {
type: string
sql: ${TABLE}.field_name ;;
html: {% assign array = value | split: " " %}
{% for word in array %}
{% if word contains '[' and word contains ']' and word contains '(' and word contains ')' %}
{% assign mdlink = word | split: "](" %}
<a href="{{ mdlink[1] | remove: '[' }}">{{ mdlink[0] | remove: ')' }}</a>
{% else %}
{{ word }}
{% endif %}
{% endfor %} ;;
}
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