How to Maintain Word Boundaries When Truncating Strings?

Maintaining Word Boundaries When Truncating Strings

In a previous query, a user sought to truncate a string to 100 characters using the substr() function. However, this method simply took the first 100 characters, potentially breaking words in the process.

Problem Statement

The objective is to truncate a string to a maximum of 100 characters while ensuring that words remain intact. For example:

$big = "This is a sentence that has more than 100 characters in it, and I want to return a string of only full words that is no more than 100 characters!"

$small = truncate_string($big);

echo $small;

// OUTPUT: "This is a sentence that has more than 100 characters in it, and I want to return a string of only"

PHP Solution

The following code provides a solution:

<code class="php">function truncate_string($string)
{
    $pos = strpos($string, ' ', 200);
    return substr($string, 0, $pos);
}</code>

Explanation:

• The strpos() function searches for the next space character in the string within the first 200 characters. This ensures we don't truncate past the first 100 characters.
• The substr() function returns the substring from the beginning of the string to the specified position, which is the position of the first space within the first 200 characters.

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