displaying first x characters, but not cutting in the middle of the word

[DoubleV]

I want to display the forst x characters of a db text field, which I guess I can do using a substring. But I don't want it to cut off in the middle of the word. How would I accomplish that?

[bcarl314]

Hmm, I know I've seen this here before.

How about something like...

PHP Code:

$text = preg_match_all("/(.{1,50}\s.{1,15})?/",$dataBaseText,$matches);
print $matches[0]; 


Not tested, but something similar should work.

[raf]

Yes. Has been posted here before. I use this

PHP Code:

/*jesus at home dot com
03-Apr-2003 08:53 
How to make a nice trim of text without break words in the middle :*/

 $maxTextLenght=125;
  $aspace=" ";
  if(strlen($text) > $maxTextLenght ) {
     $text = substr(trim($text),0,$maxTextLenght); 
     $text = substr($text,0,strlen($text)-strpos(strrev($text),$aspace));
     $text = $text.'...';
  } 


So you cut of, the run a reverse search for a space and do a substr with that is number of characters.

Of course, when i pull it from a db, i do the initial chopping of with sql

PHP Code:

sql="select left(variable, 125)  as variable from table";
...
$aspace=" ";
if(strlen($text) > $maxTextLenght ) {
     $text = substr($text,0,strlen($text)-strpos(strrev($text),$aspace));
     $text = $text.'...';
} 


[DoubleV]

Originally Posted by raf

Yes. Has been posted here before.

I did a search, so I saw that. But i got confused, so figured I'd ask again.

Originally Posted by raf

PHP Code:

sql="select left(variable, 125)  as variable from table"; 


can you please explain what "variable" should stand for in this line?

[raf]

inside the left-function, this needs bto be the name of the column /control /variable inside your table. The column you wan't to pulle the value from. The second variable is then an alias (could be the same name as the original columname. I suppose you'll kknow that 'table' needs to be replaced by the tablename.

[misterx]

Don't forget about the awesome concatenation operator! Kind of a silly revision but you could modify the last line like this:

from:

PHP Code:

$text = $text.'...'; 


to:

PHP Code:

$text .= '...'; 


Makes no difference....I just like small code so I try to squeez out extra stuff wherever I can.