Quick PHP Code Tips and Examples

Truncate long text with PHP (excerpt function)

May 4th, 2007 by Jon Moffet

Truncate is a handy function which can truncate a long text into specific length string and adds elipsis (...) after it.

This is an example of how the function "truncate($text,47)" works :
Before

PLAIN TEXT

CODE:

1. This is a very long text that I type as an example to show you the functionality of truncate

After

PLAIN TEXT

CODE:

1. This is a very long text that I type as an exam....

Here's the PHP code that can let you do just that :

PLAIN TEXT

PHP:

1. function truncate ($str, $length=10, $trailing='...')
2. {
3. /*
4. ** $str -String to truncate
5. ** $length - length to truncate
6. ** $trailing - the trailing character, default: "..."
7. */
8.       // take off chars for the trailing
9.       $length-=mb_strlen($trailing);
10.       if (mb_strlen($str)> $length)
11.       {
12.          // string exceeded length, truncate and add trailing dots
13.          return mb_substr($str,0,$length).$trailing;
14.       }
15.       else
16.       {
17.          // string was already short enough, return the string
18.          $res = $str;
19.       }
20.  
21.       return $res;
22.  
23. }

Truncate as an excerpt function
Truncate can be use to create excerpts from a very long text to serve as a preview or summary on your PHP application.

Tags: php, truncate, shorten, example, code, phpcode, tutorial

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9 Responses

1. how to truncate text in php - Dogpile Web Search Says:
   September 24th, 2008 at 12:37 pm

   [...] http://www.the-art-of-web.com/php/truncate/ • Found on Google, Windows Live, Yahoo! Search Truncate long text with PHP (excerpt function) » Quick PHP Code … Truncate as an excerpt function Truncate can be use to create excerpts from a very long text to [...]

2. Vasi Says:
   February 27th, 2009 at 5:51 pm

   What if i want the text truncated at first ’space’ character after the number i give it, so that i evoid words being cut. Have you got a solution for this? Thanks

3. arslion Says:
   March 5th, 2009 at 4:35 am

   http://news-world.us/pics

4. Michael Says:
   July 20th, 2009 at 5:01 am

   If there’s html in the text, things could go south very quickly.

5. Helen Hunt Says:
   August 4th, 2009 at 8:23 am

   Thanks for this tip..
   I spent the whole day thinking of how to implement this functionality and was lucky to stumble on your tip.

   Thanks for sharing :)

6. Tecnología Diaria Says:
   August 10th, 2009 at 11:05 pm

   de la función. Como ven, esta función es ideal para mostrar un resumen en PHP, es más, la usé para un proyecto en la universidad. Cualquier duda u optimización, observación o recomendación, es bienvenida Via:PHP CodeParticipamos en el concurso 20 Blogs Peruanos, Categoría: Tecnología y Ciencia. Apóyanos con tu voto. La votación te tomará menos de 1 minuto. Muchas gracias.            
   

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   November 8th, 2009 at 1:09 am

   [...] yazý sýnýrlamasý css deðl php’de exerpt fonksiyonunu wordpress’e uyarlamak gerekiyor… Þurada bir yazý var php ile uðraþarak yapabilirsiniz,ayrýca bazý temalardada kullanýlmýþ,bulabilisiniz, [...]

8. Tekst korter maken - SiteDeals Says:
   February 13th, 2010 at 1:00 am

   [...] http://phpcode.mypapit.net/truncate-…p-function/33/ [...]

9. Php function limiting the ammout of passed in characters. - Stack Overflow Says:
   July 29th, 2010 at 6:45 am

   [...] got it from here [...]

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