Limiting number of words

kurky

hi
i'm currently extracting text from an sql database, but it's quite lengthy and i would like to be able to limit the text to, say, 430 characters, or, 70 words. I just want the text to chop off at this point but I don't want to alter the entry in the database as i show all the text at a later point.
please does anyone have an idea how i can do this?
thanx

drawmack

I'm not sure how to do it in sql but in php it's done like this

<?
//this function trims by the number of words exclusively
function trim_words($text,$num_words) {
  if(!is_numeric($num_words) {
    return 0;
  }
  $ary_text = explode(" ",$text);
  return array_slice($ary_text,0,$words);
}
?>

kurky

oh dear
thanks for your reply. i forgot to say that i am quite new to php, so would it be possible to explain a bit as your answer is a little like chinese to me... sorry 😕

requestcode

You could use "substr" to limit it by characters. Something like this:
$comm_short=substr($query_comms[1],0,100);

the variable $query_comms[1] contains the string. This tells it to start at the first character and grab 100 characters then place that in the variable $comm_short. Hope that makes sense.

rgermain

You could also you use something like this also if you wanted:

<?
$myString = "My New House";
echo substr_replace($myString,"...",7);
?>

The code above will display as My New ...

The 1st argument tells what string to manipulate. In this case "My New House"

The 2nd argument tells what is to be used instead of what is there. In this case "..."

The 3rd argument tells at what charcter in the given string to start.

There is a 4th option argument. Which you can set the length of characters to get rid of.

kurky

thank you