I wrote a function that you can use for example in combination with a search script to cut off the articles that are too long.
<?php
function substr_index($text, $maxChars = 20, $splitter
= '...') {
$theReturn = $text;
$lastSpace = false;
if (strlen($text) > $maxChars) {
$theReturn = substr($text, 0, $maxChars - 1);
if (in_array(substr($text, $maxChars - 1, 1),
array(' ', '.', '!', '?'))) {
$theReturn .= substr($text, $maxChars, 1);
} else {
$theReturn = substr($theReturn, 0, $maxChars -
strlen($splitter));
$lastSpace = strrpos($theReturn, ' ');
if ($lastSpace !== false) {
$theReturn = substr($theReturn, 0, $lastSpace);
}
if (in_array(substr($theReturn, -1, 1), array(','))) {
$theReturn = substr($theReturn, 0, -1);
}
$theReturn .= $splitter;
}
}
return $theReturn;
}
?>
