Simple PHP Truncate Function

A neat little PHP function to truncate text that is over a certain amount of characters. Just in-case you’re asking “what does truncate mean?”. In the web design/development world, it’s when you limit the characters in a text string and add ellipsis (…) to the end.

The Function

Here’s the PHP truncate function (must be in tags):

function truncate($text, $chars = 120) {
	if(strlen($text) > $chars) {
		$text = $text.' ';
		$text = substr($text, 0, $chars);
		$text = substr($text, 0, strrpos($text ,' '));
		$text = $text.'...';
    }
	return $text;
}

Usage

Using the function is simple. To truncate your text just do the following:

<?php
// The text string you want to shorten
$string = 'Its fo rizzle adipiscing i saw beyonces tizzles and my pizzle went crizzle. Sure sapizzle velizzle, the bizzle volutpizzle, i saw beyonces tizzles and my pizzle went crizzle my shizz, for sure vizzle, doggy.';

// The truncated text to the default 120 characters
echo truncate($string);

// The truncated text to 200 characters
echo truncate($string, 200);
?>

Which will return:

Its fo rizzle adipiscing i saw beyonces tizzles and my pizzle went crizzle. Sure sapizzle velizzle, the bizzle...

Note: The function must be included on any page that you want to use it on. If using in WordPress, the functions.php file is the perfect location for the function.

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