Truncate a string to first n characters of a string and add three dots if any characters are removed

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How can I get the first n characters of a string in PHP? What's the fastest way to trim a string to a specific number of characters, and append '...' if needed?

Answers

//The simple version for 10 Characters from the beginning of the string
$string = substr($string,0,10).'...';

Update:

Based on suggestion for checking length (and also ensuring similar lengths on trimmed and untrimmed strings):

$string = (strlen($string) > 13) ? substr($string,0,10).'...' : $string;

So you will get a string of max 13 characters; either 13 (or less) normal characters or 10 characters followed by '...'

Update 2:

Or as function:

function truncate($string, $length, $dots = "...") {
    return (strlen($string) > $length) ? substr($string, 0, $length - strlen($dots)) . $dots : $string;
}

Update 3:

It's been a while since I wrote this answer and I don't actually use this code any more. I prefer this function which prevents breaking the string in the middle of a word using the wordwrap function:

function truncate($string,$length=100,$append="&hellip;") {
  $string = trim($string);

  if(strlen($string) > $length) {
    $string = wordwrap($string, $length);
    $string = explode("n", $string, 2);
    $string = $string[0] . $append;
  }

  return $string;
}

Thursday, November 24, 2022

mikelovelyuk-33e44aa999ab

You need a Ajax call to pass the JS value into php variable

JS Code will be (your js file)

var jsString="hello";
$.ajax({
    url: "ajax.php",
    type: "post",
    data: jsString
});

And in ajax.php (your php file) code will be

$phpString = $_POST['data'];     // assign hello to phpString

Thursday, November 10, 2022

mrvaldez

How about:

if (strlen($input) > $maxLen) {
    $characters = floor($maxLen / 2);
    return substr($input, 0, $characters) . '...' . substr($input, -1 * $characters);
}

Wednesday, August 3, 2022

robermorales

Here's a neat solution:

String upToNCharacters = s.substring(0, Math.min(s.length(), n));

^{Opinion: while this solution is "neat", I think it is actually less readable than a solution that uses if / else in the obvious way. If the reader hasn't seen this trick, he/she has to think harder to understand the code. IMO, the code's meaning is more obvious in the if / else version. For a cleaner / more readable solution, see @paxdiablo's answer.}

Saturday, November 26, 2022

v6ak

Use cut. Eg. to strip the first 4 characters of each line (i.e. start on the 5th char):

tail -f logfile | grep org.springframework | cut -c 5-

Wednesday, November 16, 2022

alban_maillere

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Truncate a string to first n characters of a string and add three dots if any characters are removed

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php,string,ellipsis,truncation