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What should I call the operation that limits a string's length?

Answer 1

+6 A:

Truncation, or soft truncation (because of the ellipsis)

I would call the function truncate, and that seems to be the consensus.

CPAN: http://search.cpan.org/~rjbs/String-Truncate-1.100570/lib/String/Truncate.pm
MooTools: https://mootools.lighthouseapp.com/projects/2706/tickets/670-new-addition-stringtruncate-method
Prototype: http://www.prototypejs.org/api/string/truncate
Smarty: http://www.smarty.net/manual/en/language.modifier.truncate.php

Infinity 2010-05-18 15:59:58

I received lots of very valid responses. I'm choosing this one because it happens to be called like that on the library I'm using (rails). This comment helped me find it. I also like it a bit more than ellipsize, although I realize it is a completely personal choice.

egarcia 2010-05-18 20:55:11

Answer 2

+2 A:

truncate: To shorten something as if by cutting off part of it.

Source

ChaosPandion 2010-05-18 16:00:03

Answer 3

+11 A:

UserlandFrontier calls such a method ellipsize:

http://docserver.userland.com/string/ellipsize

So does Android:

http://developer.android.com/reference/android/text/TextUtils.html

and many others (see google)

seanizer 2010-05-18 16:02:09

The name ellipsize seems a bit obscure to me. Pretty much everyone will know what truncate means

ChaosPandion 2010-05-18 16:05:33

I agree that everybody knows what truncate is, but I think that is exactly the problem: truncate implies that the string is cut of and not that it is shortened and an ellipsis added.

seanizer 2010-05-18 16:13:50

I like ellipsize, and hope that it catches on as a "standard" name for this function. Truncate is a bit generic.

I. J. Kennedy 2010-05-18 16:14:24

To me it implies the addition of an ellipsis. Maybe a hybrid is in order?

ChaosPandion 2010-05-18 16:17:01

Actually after a bit of reading it makes perfect sense.

ChaosPandion 2010-05-18 16:21:33

You know, they say you shouldn't verbalize nouns ;->

Thomas 2010-05-18 16:22:36

@Thomas - Maybe if the English language made sense maybe more people would follow the rules. :)

ChaosPandion 2010-05-18 16:24:50

Thanks a lot for your responses. I prefer truncate however. "ellipsize", while appropiate, is not real English, but "English-ish". Nothing wrong with that, but not exactly what I was looking for. But +1 because if I see ellipsize in the future I will probably know what it means.

egarcia 2010-05-18 20:59:41

Answer 4

+7 A:

I'm not a huge fan of creating new words for function names. I'd be inclined to use actual words and call the function TruncateWithEllipsis or something abundantly clear.

Thomas 2010-05-18 16:28:13

Same here, something like `'lorem impsum dolor'.truncateWith('...')` sounds good to me

Infinity 2010-05-18 16:30:58

@Infinity - That would go perfect with a c# extension method. Of course it might be annoying to have to specify every time.

ChaosPandion 2010-05-18 16:32:39

This was a bit too long for my taste, but your code will probably be more readable than mine for stranger eyes. +1 for that.

egarcia 2010-05-18 21:00:36

Answer 5

+1 A:

Although less explicit than Thomas' TruncateWithEllipsis, I might name it abbreviate because I may want to abbreviate things differently in the future, or depending on context, or what the thing I'm abbreviating is.

Stephen P 2010-05-18 18:31:40

yes, sounds very good

seanizer 2010-05-18 20:00:35

Thanks for your feedback. However, I'm not planning to change this functionality in the future, so the truncate name sounds a bit more appropiate.

egarcia 2010-05-18 21:01:44

IMO, abbreviate would mean transforming "In My Opinion" to "IMO"

Don 2010-07-30 15:26:29

@Don, "abbr" is the most common abbreviation for "abbreviation". An initialism is, indeed, *one form* of abbreviation; truncation is another form of abbreviation.

Stephen P 2010-07-31 01:41:44

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What should I call the operation that limits a string's length?

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