function truncate_utf8

Truncates a UTF-8-encoded string safely to a number of characters.

Parameters

$string: The string to truncate.

$max_length: An upper limit on the returned string length, including trailing ellipsis if $add_ellipsis is TRUE.

$wordsafe: If TRUE, attempt to truncate on a word boundary. Word boundaries are spaces, punctuation, and Unicode characters used as word boundaries in non-Latin languages; see PREG_CLASS_UNICODE_WORD_BOUNDARY for more information. If a word boundary cannot be found that would make the length of the returned string fall within length guidelines (see parameters $max_length and $min_wordsafe_length), word boundaries are ignored.

$add_ellipsis: If TRUE, add t('...') to the end of the truncated string (defaults to FALSE). The string length will still fall within $max_length.

$min_wordsafe_length: If $wordsafe is TRUE, the minimum acceptable length for truncation (before adding an ellipsis, if $add_ellipsis is TRUE). Has no effect if $wordsafe is FALSE. This can be used to prevent having a very short resulting string that will not be understandable. For instance, if you are truncating the string "See myverylongurlexample.com for more information" to a word-safe return length of 20, the only available word boundary within 20 characters is after the word "See", which wouldn't leave a very informative string. If you had set $min_wordsafe_length to 10, though, the function would realise that "See" alone is too short, and would then just truncate ignoring word boundaries, giving you "See myverylongurl..." (assuming you had set $add_ellipses to TRUE).

Return value

string The truncated string.

19 calls to truncate_utf8()
aggregator_aggregator_process in modules/aggregator/aggregator.processor.inc
Implements hook_aggregator_process().
aggregator_parse_feed in modules/aggregator/aggregator.parser.inc
Parses a feed and stores its items.
comment_admin_overview in modules/comment/comment.admin.inc
Form builder for the comment overview administration form.
comment_submit in modules/comment/comment.module
Prepare a comment for submission.
DatabaseSchema_mysql::prepareComment in includes/database/mysql/schema.inc
Prepare a table or column comment for database query.

... See full list

File

includes/unicode.inc, line 321

Code

function truncate_utf8($string, $max_length, $wordsafe = FALSE, $add_ellipsis = FALSE, $min_wordsafe_length = 1) {
    $ellipsis = '';
    $max_length = max($max_length, 0);
    $min_wordsafe_length = max($min_wordsafe_length, 0);
    if (drupal_strlen($string) <= $max_length) {
        // No truncation needed, so don't add ellipsis, just return.
        return $string;
    }
    if ($add_ellipsis) {
        // Truncate ellipsis in case $max_length is small.
        $ellipsis = drupal_substr(t('...'), 0, $max_length);
        $max_length -= drupal_strlen($ellipsis);
        $max_length = max($max_length, 0);
    }
    if ($max_length <= $min_wordsafe_length) {
        // Do not attempt word-safe if lengths are bad.
        $wordsafe = FALSE;
    }
    if ($wordsafe) {
        $matches = array();
        // Find the last word boundary, if there is one within $min_wordsafe_length
        // to $max_length characters. preg_match() is always greedy, so it will
        // find the longest string possible.
        $found = preg_match('/^(.{' . $min_wordsafe_length . ',' . $max_length . '})[' . PREG_CLASS_UNICODE_WORD_BOUNDARY . ']/u', $string, $matches);
        if ($found) {
            $string = $matches[1];
        }
        else {
            $string = drupal_substr($string, 0, $max_length);
        }
    }
    else {
        $string = drupal_substr($string, 0, $max_length);
    }
    if ($add_ellipsis) {
        $string .= $ellipsis;
    }
    return $string;
}

Buggy or inaccurate documentation? Please file an issue. Need support? Need help programming? Connect with the Drupal community.