CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phpsubstr
Scott B
Scott B

Reputation: 40157

Convert substr filter from character count to word count

I'm using the getExcerpt() function below to dynamically set the length of a snippet of text. However, my substr method is currently based on character count. I'd like to convert it to word count. Do I need to separate function or is there a PHP method that I can use in place of substr?

function getExcerpt()
{
    //currently this is character count. Need to convert to word count
    $my_excerptLength = 100; 
    $my_postExcerpt = strip_tags(
        substr(
            'This is the post excerpt hard coded for demo purposes',
            0,
            $my_excerptLength 
            )
        );
    return ": <em>".$my_postExcerpt." [...]</em>";}
}

Upvotes: 4

Views: 2630

Answers (2)

Debugger
Debugger

Reputation: 491

If you want that your script should not ignore the period and comma and other punctuation symbols then you should adopt this approach.

 function getExcerpt($text)
{
   $my_excerptLength = 100; 
   $my_array = explode(" ",$text);
   $value = implode(" ",array_slice($my_array,0,$my_excerptLength));
   return 

}

Note : This is just an example.Hope it will help you.Don't forget to vote if it help you.

Upvotes: 1

Christopher Armstrong
Christopher Armstrong

Reputation: 7953

Use str_word_count

Depending on the parameters, it can either return the number of words in a string (default) or an array of the words found (in case you only want to use a subset of them).

So, to return the first 100 words of a snippet of text:

function getExcerpt($text)
{
    $words_in_text = str_word_count($text,1);
    $words_to_return = 100;
    $result = array_slice($words_in_text,0,$words_to_return);
    return '<em>'.implode(" ",$result).'</em>';
}

Upvotes: 5

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