Selecting part of a string to the nearest word...

webdes03

I have a news table which contains news stories. I'm wondering if it is possible to set a number of characters and have the script shorten the string from the database to the nearest word to the number of characters, and add a "... Read Full Story" link. My Title is in a seperate MySQL column from the body of the story.

I know it's possible to select x number of characters from the beginning of the string, but I don't know if it's possible to select to the nearest word (so it doesn't cut off a word), all assistance is appreciated... I've put an example below.

BEFORE SCRIPT:
Robot Race Ends Without Winner
(Washington Post) - The Pentagon-sponsored robot race held in Southern California today ended without a winner, as none of the autonomous vehicles built by the 15 qualifying teams was able to travel farther than 7 miles from the starting line. The odds-on favorite to win the race blew an engine after it traveled just seven miles from the starting line. Most of the other vehicles competing for a $1 million prize in the Pentagon's "Grand Challenge" failed to travel more than a few hundred yards from the starting point near Barstow, Calif.

AFTER SCRIPT:
Robot Race Ends Without Winner
(Washington Post) - The Pentagon-sponsored robot race held in Southern California today ended without a winner, as none of the autonomous vehicles built by the 15 qualifying teams was able to travel... <a href="#">Read Full Story</a>

sidney

dont know of a function that will do it but you can create a user function

<?php
$txt="ttttt tttttt ttttttt tttttttfgfdhgsdhh dhhghgh hg g   gghgsfh g g gs  g sgsgf 
ssg hgg g g   fhhgh ghdgb dhghgds fdhhh hshds ggggg ghgdhdfh hhdhhdhhd hdshhhsh hhdhshs
 dshgsgfshjg gsggsjgjj jgjgjgjgj gfgsdgfsd fgfhdfhsdfh dhdshsdhs hshhdhfhss hshhdh shh
hh h sdhdshsdh hshsdhsh";
$len=100;
$link="articles.php?id=10";

function nearestwordlink($len,$txt,$link){
if(strlen($txt)>$len)
{
$check="1";
while($check!=" ")
{
$check=substr($txt,$len-1,1);
$len--;
}
$txt=substr($txt,0,$len);
$txt.="... <a href=\"".$link."\">Read Full Story</a>";
}
return $txt;
}
$txt=nearestwordlink($len,$txt,$link);
echo $txt
?>