PHP Limit string output by specific characters

Question

Hello,

I am trying to limit the number of characters returned from a string using PHP. I've applied a solution that just seemed to crash the server (high load) / infinite loop. So I am asking for alternative,

Simply, I am trying to find a solution that cuts the string, display specific amount of characters, but still respect the meaning of the sentence. (e.g. Does not cut in the middle of the word)

My function call is:

<?php
uc_textcut(get_the_title());
?>

And in my functions.php this is the code i used and it does crash.

function uc_textcut($var) {

     $position = 60;
     $result = substr($var,$position,1);

     if ($result !=" ") {
         while($result !=" ") {
         $i = 1;
         $position = $position+$i;
         $result = substr($var,$position,1);
         }
     }

     $result = substr($var,0,$position);
     echo $result;
     echo "...";

}

My problem is with $position = 60. The higher, the more load it takes..like its doing a very slow loop. I imagine something is wrong with while(). But I am trying to make it still understandable by the visitor.. not cutting in the middle of major word.

Any input?

:) thanks very much guys

Answer 1

    $cutoff = 25;
    if ($i < $cutoff)
    {
        echo $str;
    }
    else
    {
        // look for a space
        $lastSpace = strrchr(substr($str,0,$cutoff)," ");
        echo substr($str,0,$lastspace);
        echo "...";
    }

Answer 2

If you only want to cut the string, without doing it in the middle of a word, you might consider using the wordwrap function.

It will return a string with lines separated by a newline ; so, you then have to explode that string using \n as a separator, and take the first element of the returned array.

For more informations and/or examples and/or other solutions, see, for instance :

• How to get first x chars from a string, without cutting off the last word?
• Making sure PHP substr finishes on a word not a character.
• Trimming a block of text to the nearest word when a certain character limit is reached?
• How to Truncate a string in PHP to the word closest to a certain number of characters?

Answer 3

This will cut off at either 60 characters or the first space after 60 characters, identical to your initial code but far more efficient:

$position = 60;
if(substr($var,$position,1) == " ") $position = strpos($var," ",$position);

if($position == FALSE) $result = $var;
else $result = substr($var,0,$position);

Answer 4

$matches = array();
preg_match('/(^.{60,}?) /', $text, $matches);
print_r($matches[1]);

Then you have to add the ellipses if needed.

Answer 5

<?php

// same as phantombrain's but in a function
function uc_textcut($text) {
    $matches = array();
    preg_match('/(^.{60,}?) /', $text, $matches);
    if (isset($matches[1])) {
        echo $matches[1] . "...";
    } else {
        echo $text;
    }
}


// test it
$textLong = 'Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Sed tempus dui non sapien ullamcorper vel tincidunt nisi cursus. Vestibulum ultrices pharetra justo id varius.';
$textShort = 'Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.';

uc_textcut($textLong);
echo "\n";
uc_textcut($textShort);

?>

Prints:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Sed...
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.