Limiting number of characters from a mysql result

coopsta

How would I go about limiting the number of characters from a mysql query to only like 20 characters and if its more than that then it will add "..." to the end of the result?

NeedaCart

<?php
$max = 20;
$result = "jygjkgjykgfdgfdgfdgdfgdfg";
$result_len = strlen($result);

if ($result_len > $max)
{
substr($result, 0, $max);
$result = $result."...";
echo $result;
}
else
{
echo $result;
}

?>

Houdini

substr_replace() from PHP:Manual

$strip=substr_replace($string,"...",20);

NeedaCart

seems like i went the long way around!

Houdini

I am just lazy.

NeedaCart

well mr coopsta, if you want the ... at the end permanently then use Houdini's way, or use mine if your a perfectionist.

Personally i would use Houdini's!

sfullman

That depends.

If the text could conceivably be VERY long, you're doing a favor to mysql anyway by saying:

select id, SUBSTRING(longfield,1,75) from mytable

REGARDLESS of what I suggest. However if that is not the issue, you might try this:

select id, SUBSTRING(longfield,1,75) AS SubStringText, LENGTH(longfield) AS MaxedOut from mytable

then you can use the extra field "MaxedOut" (which is calcuated really fast) to determine if you need an ellipsis ...

does that make sense? This is probably better than building a complex CONCAT() expression in mysql - php is faster for the processing of these things.

BTW, check the syntax on SUBSTRING() - I'm shooting from the hip :-)

Samuel