[RESOLVED] String Manipulation

[rulkster2]

Is there a function that returns the first ## of a string, no matter how long the string is?

I tried using substr, but I will not always know the exact length of a string, its contents are coming from a database. For example:

$string1 = "Hello how are you?"
$string 2 = "Hi";

Now I only want to return the first 10 letters for each string. So for $string1 it will now be: "Hello how " and for string2, it stays exactly the same: "Hi"

I know I can use strlen to first find the length of each string, then truncate it, but now I am using 2 functions. Is there just 1 function that will allow me to do this?

Thanks

[jaql]

rulkster2;10932081 wrote:

Is there a function that returns the first ## of a string, no matter how long the string is?

I tried using substr, but I will not always know the exact length of a string, its contents are coming from a database. For example:

$string1 = "Hello how are you?"
$string 2 = "Hi";

Now I only want to return the first 10 letters for each string. So for $string1 it will now be: "Hello how " and for string2, it stays exactly the same: "Hi"

I know I can use strlen to first find the length of each string, then truncate it, but now I am using 2 functions. Is there just 1 function that will allow me to do this?

Thanks

So is this doing what you want or no?

<?php

$s1 = 'Hello how are you';
$s2 = 'Hi';
$s3 = 'I am a really really super long string that will be truncated anyway';

function shorten($string) {
  return substr($string, 0, 10);
}

echo shorten($s1).'<br/>'; // Prints Hello how
echo shorten($s2).'<br/>'; // Prints Hi
echo shorten($s3).'<br/>'; // Prints I am a rea
//

[rulkster2]

Yes thats it. I was using a negative value (-10), which I did not realize and it caused it to behave in an incorrect fashion.

Thanks!