How to wrap long lines without spaces in HTML?

Question

If a user types in a long line without any spaces or white space, it will break formating by going wider than the current element. Something like:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.............................................................................................................................................

I've tried just using wordwrap() in PHP, but the problem with that is if there is a link or some other valid HTML, it breaks.

There seems to be a few options in CSS, but none of them work in all browsers. See word-wrap in IE.

How do you solve this problem?

StackOverflow Staff: Seems like you have the same problem, so you may want to pay attention. :)

Answer 1

I dodge the problem by not having my right sidebar fixed like that :P

Answer 2

I would put the post in a div that would have a fixed width setting overflow to scroll (or to hide completely depending on the content).

so like:

#post{
    width: 500px;
    overflow: scroll;
}

But that's just me.

EDIT: As cLFlaVA points out... it is better to use auto then scroll. I do agree with him.

Answer 3

Here's what I do in ASP.NET:

1. Split the text field on spaces to get all the words
2. Iterate the words looking for words that are longer than a certain amount
3. Insert every x characters (e.g. every 25 characters.)

I looked at other CSS based ways of doing this, but didn't find anything that worked cross-browser.

Answer 4

I like to use the overflow: auto CSS property/value pairing. This will render the parent object the way you'd expect it to appear. If the text within the parent is too wide, scrollbars appear within the object itself. This will keep the structure the way you want it to look and provide the viewer with the ability to scroll over to see more.

Edit: the nice thing about overflow: auto compared to overflow: scroll is that with auto, the scrollbars will only appear when overflowing content exists. With scroll, the scrollbars are always visible.

Answer 5

There is no "perfect" HTML/CSS solution.

The solutions either hide the overflow (ie scrolling or just hidden) or expand to fit. There is no magic.

Q: How can you fit a 100cm wide object into a space only 99cm wide?

A: You can't.

You can read break-word

EDIT

Please check out this solution http://stackoverflow.com/questions/330229/how-to-apply-a-line-wrapcontinuation-style-and-code-formatting-with-css

or

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/320184/who-has-solved-the-long-word-breaks-my-div-problem-hint-not-stackoverflow

Answer 6

I haven't personally used it, but Hyphenator looks promising.

Also see related (possibly duplicate) questions:

• word wrap in css / js
• Who has solved the long-word-breaks-my-div problem? (hint: not stackoverflow)

Answer 7

based on Jon's suggestion the code that I created:

public static string WrapWords(string text, int maxLength)
    {
        string[] words = text.Split(' ');
        for (int i = 0; i < words.Length; i++)
        {
            if (words[i].Length > maxLength) //long word
            {
                words[i] = words[i].Insert(maxLength, " ");
                //still long ?
                words[i]=WrapWords(words[i], maxLength);
            }
        }
        text = string.Join(" ", words);
        return (text);
    }

Answer 8

I have posted a solution which uses JavaScript and a simple Regular Expression to break long word so that it can be wrapped without breaking your website layout.

Wrap long lines using CSS and JavaScript

Answer 9

in CSS3:

word-wrap:break-word