Im looking for a soluting for the followting case. I have a string
"This is a long string of words" I want to use only the first few words, but if I just cut everything after 20th character, it will look like this:
"This is a long strin" I can grab first 3 words
implode(' ', array_slice(explode(' ', "This is a long string of words"), 0, 3)); But in some cases, 3 words are going to be too short "I I I".
How can I grab as many words as possible before 20th character?
Before I give you an answer in PHP, have you considered the following CSS solution?
overflow:hidden; white-space:nowrap; text-overflow:ellipsis; This will result in the text being cut off at the most appropriate place and an ellipsis ... marking the cut-off.
If this is not the effect you're looking for, try this PHP:
$words = explode(" ",$input); // if the first word is itself too long, like hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia // then just cut that word off at 20 characters if( strlen($words[0]) > 20) $output = substr($words[0],0,20); else { $output = array_shift($words); while(strlen($output." ".$words[0]) <= 20) { $output .= " ".array_shift($words); } } 