[loeddie]

Dear all,

Let's say I have a variable $pro_description, it was a long text description, but I only want to show first 50 words, how can I do it? thanks for any help.

Best Regards
Eddie Lo
PHP Newbie

[Orbitz]

PHP Code:

//suppose:

$pro_description = "this text contains up to 50 characters ......";



preg_match('#^\s*(.{50,}?)\s+.*$#s', $pro_description, $short_description);



echo $short_description[0]; 

// if there is no space right after the 50th character, it continues matching until it hits white space; this way, it won't cut off word and makes it meaningless.

[loeddie]

I just follow the method that taught by Orbitz, but I got the seem result, all the data from the record from database shown instead of only show the first 50 words, any help will be appreciate, thanks!

Eddie

[moronovich]

Originally Posted by Orbitz

PHP Code:

//suppose:

$pro_description = "this text contains up to 50 characters ......";



preg_match('#^\s*(.{50,}?)\s+.*$#s', $pro_description, $short_description);



echo $short_description[0]; 

// if there is no space right after the 50th character, it continues matching until it hits white space; this way, it won't cut off word and makes it meaningless.

won't work as you wish. here, you're capturing whole text (from the statement "echo $short_description[0];"). the regexp pattern will also fail to grab 50 characters because you didn't set the ungreedy flag (you set the first subpattern to fetch anything. here, space and tab is included).

since he wants to line up 50 words and not 50 chars from the beginning, a simple (not optimized) solution could be:

PHP Code:

function get_n_words($longtext,$n) {

    $first_n = preg_split('/[\s]+/',$longtext,$n,PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY);

    $first_n_count = count($first_n);

    $returned = '';

    for($i=0; $i<$n; $i++) {

        if($i>=$first_n_count) break;

        $returned .= $first_n[$i].' ';

    }

    return $returned;

}



$pro_description = 'Consider this a very long long text. More than 50 words';

//Print first 50 words if available or less

print get_n_words($pro_description,50); 

regards,

[moronovich]

oops... seemed my post was too late..

[loeddie]

I just tested moronovich 's code and find that it is not working, please help me on that, thanks a million.

Here is what I pasted my code, what it still print the whole thing at $pro_description.

function get_n_words($longtext,$n) {
$first_n = preg_split('/[\s]+/',$longtext,$n,PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY);
$first_n_count = count($first_n);
$returned = '';
for($i=0; $i<$n; $i++) {
if($i>=$first_n_count) break;
$returned .= $first_n[$i].' ';
}
return $returned;
}

$pro_description = 'Consider this a very long long text. More than 50 words Consider this a very long long text. More than 50 words Consider this a very long long text. More than 50 words Consider this a very long long text. More than 50 words Consider this a very long long text. More than 50 words Consider this a very long long text. More than 50 words Consider this a very long long text. More than 50 words Consider this a very long long text. More than 50 words Consider this a very long long text. More than 50 words Consider this a very long long text. More than 50 words Consider this a very long long text. More than 50 words Consider this a very long long text. More than 50 words Consider this a very long long text. More than 50 words Consider this a very long long text. More than 50 words Consider this a very long long text. More than 50 words Consider this a very long long text. More than 50 words Consider this a very long long text. More than 50 words Consider this a very long long text. More than 50 words Consider this a very long long text. More than 50 words Consider this a very long long text. More than 50 words ';
//Print first 50 words if available or less
print get_n_words($pro_description,50);

[bizzar528]

Here's my code for something similar that I do for one of my scripts.

PHP Code:

$truncate = 50;

$first50 = substr(nl2br($fullstring),0,$truncate);

echo $first50; 

That should be easily converted into a function.

[moronovich]

sorry. i didn't test it myself, but i just found an interesting fact. it seems that preg_split function is buggy (i don't know whether this is valid assumption, but i'll check the source later to make sure about this).
you can hack above code to work, by changing the function into:

PHP Code:

function get_n_words($longtext,$n) {

    $first_n = preg_split('/[\s]+/',$longtext,$n,PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY);

    $first_n_count = count($first_n);

    $returned = '';

    for($i=0; $i<$n; $i++) {

        if($i == $n - 1) {

            $returned .= preg_replace('/([^\s]+).*$/',"\\1",$first_n[$i]);

        }

        else {

            $returned .= $first_n[$i].' ';

        }

        if($i>=$first_n_count) break;

    }

    return $returned;

} 

good luck!

[moronovich]

Originally Posted by bizzar528

Here's my code for something similar that I do for one of my scripts.

PHP Code:

$truncate = 50;

$first50 = substr(nl2br($fullstring),0,$truncate);

echo $first50; 

That should be easily converted into a function.

notes on above code:
1. it cuts up to 50 chars from the beginning and not words.
2.there is always a chance for the output to not be displayed properly since nl2br function is executed before the the substr (imagine if i have <br /> with offset 48).

any comments?

[loeddie]

Originally Posted by moronovich

sorry. i didn't test it myself, but i just found an interesting fact. it seems that preg_split function is buggy (i don't know whether this is valid assumption, but i'll check the source later to make sure about this).
you can hack above code to work, by changing the function into:

PHP Code:

function get_n_words($longtext,$n) {

    $first_n = preg_split('/[\s]+/',$longtext,$n,PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY);

    $first_n_count = count($first_n);

    $returned = '';

    for($i=0; $i<$n; $i++) {

        if($i == $n - 1) {

            $returned .= preg_replace('/([^\s]+).*$/',"\\1",$first_n[$i]);

        }

        else {

            $returned .= $first_n[$i].' ';

        }

        if($i>=$first_n_count) break;

    }

    return $returned;

} 

good luck!

This code works great, but when I try to loop my recordset, the function only work for the first record, the second and the rest will not run the function at all, am I do anything wrong here? Sorry for a lot of questions..>"<

regards
Eddie